A demographic phenomenon known as “freeters” may also play its part. While Japan is often talked about as the land of the greying sun because of its ageing demographics, there is an influential younger generation with different attitudes to travel, culture and work. This is particularly evident in the labour market, where the Japanese tradition of lifetime employment and salary-men working for the same company has been replaced by the “freeter” phenomenon where casual employment and ever-changing jobs and careers changes the dynamics of the Japanese employment relationship.
There has been debate about the freeter concept. Some older scholars have claimed it is the choice of younger people to not be tied down to one employer or one job, while many freeters themselves claim that they would prefer more job security but cannot find permanent positions because of the changing nature of work in Japan.
Nevertheless, the freeter phenomenon however has opened up opportunities for Australian service exporters specialising in job placement and career services. For example, Australian Terrie Lloyd, President of Linc Media, who set up (and later sold) an online recruiting company, Dai-job.com aimed at “freeter” job seekers.
He sees this as a boom market as “traditionally Japan engineers society, but now Japanese society is opening up in a manner that is neither engineered or controlled.” The rise of the Internet, mobile phones, SMS messages, Lloyd believes is “setting up a whole new youth sub-culture based of the information revolution which is more open to western influences than ever before.”
Despite the potential gains to be had from the FTA – early studies estimated JAFTA to be worth $39 billion and $27 billion to the GDP of Australia and Japan respectively – there is still little awareness about the agreement, especially compared to talks with China. In fact, according to a survey by logistics company DHL, only 35% of exporters thought an FTA with Japan would benefit their business compared to 61% who were positive about a China-Australia FTA.
But there is some early evidence of “head-turning”, with 59% saying that once the potential FTA with Japan came into being, they would increase exports to Japan, while 22% of total exporters said they would now start exporting to Japan as a result of JAFTA, while 22% said they would develop a new product or service specifically for the Japanese market.
Japan enabled Australia to have a beach head into the region in the second half of the 20th century, now Japan and Australia will again be key players and partners as Australia tries to cement itself in the Asian Century.
Tim Harcourt is the JW Nevile Fellow in Economics at the Australian School of Business at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the author of The Airport Economist.
This story was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.
