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Shūshin koyō (終身雇用; "employment for life") is the term forpermanent employment inJapan. It was extremely common in major Japanese companies, beginning with the firsteconomic successes in the 1920s. It continued to be a defining characteristic of Japanese corporate culture through theJapanese post-war economic miracle, but its prominence waned after the bursting of theJapanese asset price bubble, theLost Decade and subsequenteconomic reforms.
Shūshin koyō starts with an event called Shinsotsu-ikkatsu-saiyō (simultaneous recruiting of new graduates) in which a large cohort of recent university graduates all enter a company at once. It gave Japanese workers the important feeling ofjob security as part ofJapanese management culture, and in turn, elicited a high degree of companyloyalty. A high demand for the few availableengineers forced companies to bind these employees to the company. The collapse of theJapanese asset price bubble and the followingcrisis in the 1990s did not weaken the practice.[citation needed] It was still even used in Japanesesmall businesses. Some critics of lifetime employment hoped that withJunichiro Koizumi's administration, lifetime employment would become less common.[citation needed] They hoped thatneoliberal economics policies would result inprivatization, firing of old and expensive workers, and the rise ofpart-time jobs.[citation needed] Due to theGreat Recession and the2008 financial crisis, some companies discontinued the practice ofshūshin koyō and implement masslayoffs.[citation needed] Thus, there was less job security asshūshin koyō was challenged.[citation needed]
However, as noted by researcher Koji Takahashi in 2019: "in the case of regular workers, the practice of long-term employment is maintained, in the sense that both employers and labor unions still seek to avoid making dismissals or voluntary retirement solicitations."[1]
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