Crows circle around the tract of cleared land that was once Hoya Corp.'s Pentax camera plant in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture. All that's left is a sign directing employees to a dormitory and gymnasium, both pulled down years ago when a strong yen was driving manufacturers abroad.
This was once part of Japan's industrial heartland, a place that shows little sign of benefiting from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's success in weakening the currency and battling deflation. While a 36 percent tumble in the yen has stoked record profits at big exporters like Toyota Motor Corp., the jobs lost here have yet to return.
Mashiko is in Tochigi, one of the prefectures around Tokyo that churned out the world's gadgets and technology before Japan's bubble burst in the 1990s and China gradually took over the mantle of production. The region is littered with abandoned or downsized plants, some from companies that are still global brands, like consumer electronics giants Panasonic Corp. and Sony Corp. Most of the blight stems from the hundreds of smaller suppliers that make up the lion's share of Japan's manufacturing.