Japan turns to 'work-sharing' to avoid layoffs

[Coventina]

Source: Associated Press

HIRAKATA, Japan (AP) — Yasuo Igarashi spends a lot of time these days on the jungle gym with his daughter, after his employer joined the growing ranks of Japanese companies adopting "work-sharing" to ride out the global slump.

Common in parts of Europe, work-sharing means slashing employees' pay and hours instead of firing people outright. Two or three people might share what previously was one person's job.

The idea is that employees are required to share the pain of coping with hard times while everyone gets to keep their jobs — even if they're paid less.

Work-sharing is the latest buzzword in Japan Inc. Proponents say it's a good way to avoid American-style layoffs in a society that has long fostered lifetime employment. Toyota Motor Corp., Mazda Motor Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Fujitsu Inc., have all taken up some kind of work-sharing. Nissan Motor Co. and others are considering it.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iToQK5sXBVtbqZe56n_MFgfAVeuwD96F88NG0

[madrchsod]

1. i wonder what it`s like to live in civilized nation

oh well, we are a country of ruff n'tuff individuals ...none of that help your neighbor bullshit.

[quispquake]

2. Another good reason for universal health care

In our country, it's cheaper to drop the employee completely so they lose all their benefits...in other countries, work sharing is a corporate option as they're not paying for health insurance benefits.

[robinlynne]

3. That makes a lot of sense.

[badgerpup]

4. Mindset...runs deep.

According to my friend Ken (who is Japanese), Americans are all obsessed with "I"...
the most used word, indicator, what have you...in the English language. This amazed him.
:wow:
Kinda troubles me, too...and I grew up with this; this is my native culture...so it seems perfectly natural/normal...until one actually examines it. :blush:

His people are more concerned with "we"...how do we all get along, what do we think, how do we handle this...

and it shows in lots of ways.

[WriteDown]

5. That can have bad ramifications as well....

Spent some time in Japan. Its not unusual for people to kill themselves for letting the "company", family, or parents down.

[badgerpup]

6. True...

...just didn't want to go into a whole bunch of social ramifications.

I tend to get verbose (can you do that on a keyboard?) with that sort of thing and wanted to make a brief post for a change...

[Abacus]

7. We had a budget meeting today.

I offered to take a salary cut if the alternative was that someone would lose a job. Everybody looked at me like I was crazy, the newest guy (2 years) said he wasn't prepared to go that far. Given the response, I'm not so sure I'm as open to that option as I was initially.

[riverdeep]

8. Nope, not here.

We'd rather have three executives making 20 million and fire 800 people. It's all about King of the Hill.

[Mind_your_head]

10. So very very *disturbingly* true!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: <------ It's a mad, mad world America

[4_TN_TITANS]

9. Brilliant way to reset the pay scale for when things get going again.