Is Japan on the brink of its own ‘Great Resignation’?

Yuka Fujimura first thought about quitting her job in the spring of 2020, when COVID-19 case counts soared and Tokyo declared its first state of emergency.

The day care center that Fujimura’s 2-year-old daughter attended had closed for the duration of the emergency decree. That meant the 35-year-old mom was tasked with looking after her child at home while running a one-person public relations team for an AI-powered voice communication startup.

“My daughter wasn’t happy at all. She became frustrated and cried a lot, begging me to take her to the park. But I had so much work to handle and no one to cover for me at my company,” Fujimura says.

“Meanwhile, some of my friends in similar situations began leaving their jobs for the sake of their children,” she says. “That’s when it first dawned on me that perhaps it would be better if I left my organization and pursued an independent path.”

Fujimura may be among the forerunners in Japan of a global phenomenon first dubbed the “Great Resignation” and, later, the “Great Reshuffle,” in which millions of workers began to leave their jobs en masse as pandemic-battered economies gradually regained their footing.

In November 2021, for example, a record 3% of the workforce in the United States, or nearly 4.5 million people, quit their jobs. The figure in December was nearly as high, with resignation rates highest among those in hospitality and health care.

In Australia, 1 in 5 workers changed their jobs last year and a quarter are currently considering leaving their workplace, according to new research from National Australia Bank.

In India, meanwhile, reports say the information technology industry witnessed a record attrition rate in 2021, triggering a hiring overdrive among tech firms.

Some workers are burned out and need time off. Others leave in pursuit of more fulfilling, flexible roles taking advantage of staffing shortages. For those like Fujimura, it was a combination of both factors that convinced her to call it quits.

And while the movement still appears to be in its nascent stages in Japan, there are signs that the sweeping trend could soon reach the shores of a nation known for its long working hours and rigid labor market.

During those initial months of the pandemic, Fujimura and her husband hired private nannies for several hours a day using government subsidies, but still footed around ¥150,000 ($1,300) of the total bill on their own as a surge in demand pushed up rates in the capital.

While the day care facility eventually reopened, Fujimura continued to struggle with balancing her parenting duties and work responsibilities during wave after wave of infections to the extent that her health deteriorated. She couldn’t sleep at night. Rashes broke out all over her body and she found blood in her urine.

“The situation was taking its toll, both on myself and our child,” she says. “That’s when I decided it was time.”

In November 2021, Fujimura handed in her resignation and launched her own PR advisory service. She reconnected with the various firms she dealt with in the past and now works with around 10 clients. Her income has roughly doubled. Moreover, she can now manage her own schedule.

“I’m surprised at how satisfied I am now. I’m especially grateful that I can spend more time with my family,” she says, adding that the boom in working remotely has also helped, since most clients are now willing to meet online rather than in person, saving both parties significant time. “I don’t think I would have taken the big leap if it wasn’t for the pandemic.”

For many across the world, the prolonged health emergency has offered a moment of reckoning. Lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing and other restrictions imposed on movement meant there was plenty of time to reflect on individual career paths and work-life balance.

The permeation of remote work also opened up new opportunities transcending geographical boundaries, allowing people to pursue careers from the comfort of their homes. And with extraordinary public health measures gradually loosening in many nations, large swaths of workers are reconfiguring their professional lives in search of greener pastures.

What’s happening in Japan, a nation traditionally known for its lifetime employment system?

At first glance, it appears the nation is bucking the trend and following a familiar pattern. As the economy tanked amid the pandemic and job openings fell, so has the number of workers changing occupations.

According to the communications ministry, only 4.3% of the working population changed jobs in 2021, down 0.5 of a percentage point from the previous year and marking the lowest figure since comparable records became available in 2002. The government’s employment adjustment subsidy and other relief programs are believed to have played a part in keeping employment in check.

“The number of job-hoppers typically increases when the economy is strong and decreases when it isn’t, and that’s what we’re seeing now,” says Takuya Hoshino, an economist at the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. “What’s interesting, however, is how the number of those who want to change jobs is growing.”

According to statistics compiled by Hoshino’s think tank based on the government’s labor force survey, those wishing to change jobs climbed to 8.41 million in 2021, compared to 8.19 million in 2020 and 8 million in 2019. The phenomenon is most apparent among white-collar workers and full-time employees, Hoshino says.

“These are the people who work at companies that adopted working remotely relatively quickly, indicating that the workstyle has inspired many to search for new positions,” he says.

Demographics also play a large role. The rapidly graying and declining population, coupled with a low birthrate, means Japan is bracing for a desperate lack of workers looking ahead. The shortfall is already manifesting itself in the nursing care and IT sectors.

The health ministry predicts Japan will need another 690,000 long-term care workers by 2040 to look after the ballooning number of elderly people. The trade ministry, meanwhile, estimated in 2019 that the nation lacked around 220,000 tech workers in 2018, with the figure expected to climb to as high as 790,000 by 2030.

“The impact of COVID-19 will likely see more people opting to change jobs,” Hoshino says.

“And while that is a positive change for the Japanese job market and economy, we also need to get rid of some embedded structural issues hampering flexible employment,” he says, highlighting such things as seniority-based wage systems, the growing pool of low-paid part-time and temporary workers, and stagnant wage growth.

If there’s a silver lining to all this, however, it could be how the big shift toward working remotely is redefining the relationship between job obligations and family.

Raising children or taking care of elderly parents won’t have to be career roadblocks, especially for women, says Ayuko Kaneko, executive vice president of mog Co., a career matching and counseling firm focusing on working mothers.

Bringing in more women and elevating their status in the labor force has been a policy priority for past administrations intent on shoring up the stagnant economy. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for example, has been a leading proponent of the goal, dubbing his initiative “womenomics.”

But while the number of women with occupations has increased over the past decade, now accounting for roughly 45% of the entire workforce, or 29.8 million people, many are part-timers — partially the result of spousal tax deductions and entrenched cultural expectations that see men as the primary bread-winners.

“Many professional women who have children in Japan have their career aspirations derailed — they often forgo raises and promotions since they need to shorten working hours to look after their children and family,” Kaneko says. “But I believe COVID-19 has helped overcome that obstacle. By utilizing flextime and remote work, they can work full time just like their male peers.”

Kaneko says her firm offers career counseling to around 40 clients a month. Of them, roughly 90% say they’d like to work full time if they can take advantage of such arrangements.

The stagnant economy and erosion of Japan’s decadeslong reputation for job security have also seen the number of freelance workers and those taking on side jobs grow, according to Mari Hirata, a public relations specialist and president of Freelance Association Japan. The organization is aimed at providing support for freelancers while lobbying the government to provide legal frameworks for the self-employed.

During Japan’s economic boom of the 1960s and ’70s, millions of workers enjoyed the perks of lifetime employment and seniority-based pay hikes in exchange for their devotion to the company, which meant notoriously long working hours. But as the nation sank into the economic doldrums after the asset price bubble popped in the early 1990s, firms found they could no longer afford to maintain the rigid system, and began streamlining and outsourcing work.

A survey by the Cabinet Secretariat suggests there are 4.62 million freelance workers nationwide as of 2020. The figure, however, could be much higher depending on how the demographic is defined. Staffing agency Lancers reports the number of freelancers, including company employees who moonlight, “parallel workers” commissioned by multiple companies and other self-employed individuals, jumped to 15.77 million in 2021 from 10.6 million in 2020.

“As might be expected, the pandemic has been financially damaging for many freelance workers who already suffer from a lack of social security and other benefits,” Hirata says. “More recent data suggests, however, that COVID-19’s impact on income is gradually waning.”

Meanwhile, the number of people registered with the job-matching firms participating in Hirata’s association have doubled since the onset of the pandemic, she says.

“With less time at the office and more time to reflect on their careers working from home, some have decided to pursue the path of self-employment, even relocating to the countryside for a better environment,” she says.

Such was the case with Koji Yamazaki, a former engineer at Olympus Corp.

After being employed by the optical technology giant for eight years, Yamazaki left his job in October 2020 and moved from Tokyo to the city of Ina in Nagano Prefecture. He now makes a living as a subcontractor who works with three firms — two manufacturers and a biotech venture.

“I’ve been considering changing jobs for some years. To put it simply, I began losing interest in what I was doing,” says the 34-year-old father of two. The snail-paced decision-making often typical of large firms, coupled with the lack of his creative input in product design had gradually turned him off.

The pandemic was the final straw. As he began working remotely, Yamazaki felt the stress piling up. He missed chatting with colleagues and letting off steam. And if you need to vent about work, he thought, that’s a telltale sign that you’re unhappy.

“I began rethinking my priorities and considering how I could restore my interest in work in a sustainable, stress-free environment,” Yamazaki says — something he has since rediscovered with his newfound lifestyle.

Yamazaki currently makes roughly the same amount as he did when he was a full-time corporate employee. He spends his free time transforming an abandoned traditional dozō storehouse in the mountainous village of Ogawa, around two hours north by car from where he lives, into a shared office and event space. His children also seem to be enjoying their new home and the abundance of nature and spacious parks.

“If the pandemic hadn’t hit, I would’ve probably continued working at my old job,” he says. “Now I’m doing what I want to do, according to my own schedule. There’s so much more freedom.”