Motivation Exploitation

Ichiro Suzuki

The Tramp administration is attacking elite universities in the U.S., demanding changes to the way they are run so that these institutions are not excessively liberal, or the governments’ grants and research contracts be frozen. Foreign nationals in the faculty have been reportedly feeling uneasy amid sudden uncertainty in their career outlook in the U.S. Some of such talents are expected to leave the U.S. most likely landing at renowned universities in Europe. Some people in Japan are hoping that these scholars move to Japan, too. But would they come? 

Japan is a beautiful and interesting country to foreigners. It is safe and clean with good food and nice people. Do people come to Japan to teach and/ or do their research works? Not so sure though there will probably be a small number of people who land Japan, having left the U.S., but the vast mnrotiy of them are unlikely to accept a position at a Japanese university. 

A major obstacle that stands in the way of highly qualified foreign professionals to work in Japan is their compensation. Japan is a country of low pay and the world of academia is no exception. At the University of Tokyo, the pinnacle of Japan’s education, its 1,200 professors are on average paid ¥12 million ($84,000) with the highest paid professor receiving a touch less than ¥20 million. No other university in Japan pays better than the University of Tokyo. At Harvard University, in contrast, professors’ salary is reportedly ranging between $165,000 and $282,000 with an average base salary of $216,000. Some positions, like those at the Harvard Business School, can see significantly higher compensation, potentially exceeding $1 million annually. A sharp salary difference between Harvard and the University of Tokyo would make one think twice before accepting a position at the latter even if it might offer him or her an ideal research environment. In order to attract foreigners to start an academic career in Japan, the country has to offer something really special that overrides financial issues. In Japan in recent years, this is called ‘yarigai sakushu’ or motivation exploitation. There are many positions and jobs that give a prestige and inspire people, but lack financial rewards.

Motivation exploitation is not unique only to the academic world. It is more conspicuous in Kasumigaseki, where bureaucracy buildings are clustered in Tokyo. An undersecretary of a ministry, a top bureaucrat, is paid ¥23 million. It is well below the median starting salary of MBAs from top ten business schools in the U.S., which is getting close to $200,000. Jobs at Kasumigaseki has been highly prestigious and have drawn top talents from top universities for well over a hundred years.  Kasumigaseki  gives bright and ambitious young men and women responsibilities of formulating policies that directly moves the country. Their jobs not only are prestigious but also wields immense power. With what’s attached to the positions, able men and women should be happy to take the jobs despite excessively long working hours and a lack of financial lures. That has been an underlying assumption in recruiting at Kasumigaseki, perhaps until the end of the 20th century. Today, younger people are less interested in a career as a bureaucrat, in search of better work-life balance, or greater financial rewards. Some of them don’t mind working hundred hours a week for McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. In 2024 the number of applicants for the bureaucracy at Kasumigaseki, the vast majority of them straight out of college, was down a whopping 39% from 2012. If that’s not enough, a greater number of young bureaucrats choose to switch career into the private sector, saying good bye to crazy life at Kasumigaseki. With the luster attached to the job now fading, the system that has underpinned Japan’s rise since the late 19th century is now in jeopardy, it is feared. 

A few decades ago, a law was made to obligate corporations to keep employing workers who have reached the retirement age of sixty. Life after sixty is long these days and the pension scheme doesn’t start paying beneficiaries until they are sixty five. It is now mandatory that workers be kept employed if they want to do so until they hit sixty five. On the other hand, the law stipulates nothing about the conditions of such workers over sixty. In the vast majority of the cases, they retire at sixty and then be rehired, on a full or part time basis depending on their preference. However, they can’t choose what they do, and full timers over sixty are often paid as much as entry levels employees. Some of them are highly skilled professionals, and very likely they keep doing what they have been doing. They nonetheless are paid like entry level people, based on a general policy applied to senior employees. Employers never think this way, but an implicit message on their pay is “You should be glad that you have a job and don’t ask for much else.” 

In the 1980s, up and coming South Korean corporations started approaching middle-aged Japanese engineers. Some of them had weekend trips to Seoul to teach their skills to young Korean engineers. They still kept working for Japanese electronics companies that were global powerhouses back then. Such Japanese engineers simply wanted to be paid extra and be treated nicely. Later, Korean corporations began to hire disgruntled Japanese engineers on a full time basis. To many of them, it was a sea change to be treated very nicely as opposed to being mired in a Japanese corporate bureaucracy with mediocre pay and without given a chance to shine. In the 21st century, Chinese corporations began approaching middle-aged Japanese engineers, too, to make them help climb the value chain in their field. 

It is now abundantly clear that at universities, the bureaucracy or private corporations, unwillingness and inability to pay market price to able professionals are costing Japan dearly. It might have been still all right in this way in the late 20th century when Japan was one of the wealthiest countries as measured by per capita GDP. The country has fallen off the cliff since then, now attracting foreign tourists in part for low prices. In the face of recent labor shortages and competition for hiring and retaining capable young employees, major Japanese corporations at last have begun to offer more flexible pay packages, getting rid of rigidity out of their compensation scheme. Such compensation packages might be still less appealing than those offered by foreign multilateral-nationals. It is nonetheless a necessary first step. It is, however, extremely difficult to change compensation structure for scholars and bureaucrats, especially for the latter. Public resentment for highly paid public workers runs high in a society where the a culture of jealously is deeply rooted. 



About the author: Mr. Suzuki is a retired banker based in Tokyo, Japan.