Nanae Okubo was "inspired." Shunta Taka-yama was "waaaah, all fired up."
The heady mixture of pompom-waving cheerleaders, chants drawn from ancient warrior purification rituals, drummers, a brass band and ear-splitting rock music had gotten the two 19-year-old Tokyo students psyched up for their coming challenge.
They are about to start looking for work.
PHOTO: AP
The two were among some 3,000 students from business and technology colleges who filled an outdoor auditorium in a central Tokyo park earlier this week for an event aimed at giving them a rousing send-off on their journey into the corporate world.
Crowding the stage and screaming at the cheerleaders, the students, identically clad in severe grey suits, weren't behaving like the salarymen and women of tomorrow, even if they looked like them.
But their exuberance masks a serious reality.
Times are tough for young workers in Japan. Unemployment in the 15-24 age group is 10 percent, twice the overall rate and double what it was 10 years ago.
Japan's decade-long slowdown has pushed the unemployment rate up to record highs as companies cut costs by shedding older workers, closing subsidiaries and holding off on new hires.
"Listening to older students I realize that things are getting more difficult each year," Okubo said, struggling to make herself heard over the brass band's rendition of Frankie Valli's Can't take my eyes off you.
With a recovery gathering steam, there are signs that employment conditions are getting better, with more jobs available. But the slowdown has left a legacy of problems for the economy.
Fewer young workers means less tax income and welfare payments to boost falling government revenues and prop up the ailing pension and health systems needed to cope with Japan's rapidly aging society.
In addition, poor prospects and a more individualistic outlook on life have seen some 4 million young people opt for a life of casual job-hopping, more than double the number 10 years ago.
This has raised government concern about whether Japan will have enough skilled workers to maintain its industrial productivity, a problem that some say will take more than an economic recovery to sort out.
"The worrying aspect is the skill mismatch angle," said Richard Jerram, chief economist at ING Securities.
"Job vacancies are running at record levels, generally in highly value-added manufacturing and information services," he said.
"It appears that many young people may have spent their university years playing Game Boy but they are not qualified as IT engineers."
Remedying this, he said would mean taking a look at the education system, which may be too generalist.
However, the government may take some heart from the positive approach of Okubo, Takayama and several other students who took time away from the fun and games to talk about their prospects.
All were aware of how difficult the challenge was, but none was interested in the casual labor route.
"I don't think it's bad for people to become casual workers, if they are working toward some dream of their own," said Takayama.
"But I want a regular job," he said.
Takeo Ariga, a goatee-sporting 21-year-old would-be public official, said people shouldn't just blame the economy.
"High school students are too superficial when they think about work. They need to think more seriously."
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS