Heisei Corp., a small construction company in Shizuoka Prefecture, has a pool of 220 carpenters comprising many who finished graduate programs at the country's top schools, including the University of Tokyo.
Carpentry is by no means a magnet for new graduates on the job front in Japan due to low wages, and like any other industry in Japan it is beset by the impact of a graying population.
"The construction industry is experiencing an acute aging (of workers) and carpenters may well be called an endangered species," Hisao Akimoto, who heads Heisei, said in an interview with Kyodo News.