Japan struggling to fight shortage of skilled engineers

Friday 22nd August, 06:45 AM JST

TOKYO —

At the Chiba shipyard of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co. facing Tokyo Bay, there is an office building with a sign reading ‘‘Center for Handing Down Technology,’’ and on its door, there is a poster with the faces of 28 older workers wearing helmets. They are veteran engineers, called ‘‘skill masters,’’ who are in charge of fostering young engineers. About 300 engineers at the shipyard, accounting for 49 percent of the total, are aged between 51 and 60. During the shipbuilding recession in the mid-1970s through the 1980s, shipbuilding companies refrained from recruiting new engineers with a resultant shortage of mid-level engineers responsible for the next generation.

The center, set up in January last year, has been producing steady results and is said to be popular even among young engineers. Skill masters Mitsuo Kato, 59, a section chief, and Eijiro Furukawa, 57, an assistant section chief, both have experience of giving technical guidance in South Korea and China. Kato said, ‘‘The Japanese are trying to own skills jointly and mutually and to make things better, but the South Koreans and Chinese are reluctant to share skills they have acquired with others. The Japanese way to hand down their skills to future generations is the way to go. Mass retirements from the company peaked in the period from 2000 to 2004 with about 1,000 employees reaching the compulsory retirement age, but the company managed to tide over the difficulty by introducing a ‘‘meister system’’ in which veteran engineers hand down their skills to the next generation.

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Latest 15 of 31 Total Comments Show All

PASHA_51 at 01:18 PM JST - 22nd August

High time to make new policy to promote engineering and science as major subjects among Japnese students and a the same time allow expatriates to work in Japan until Japan produces sufficient engineers and scients in coming years.
solarbuster at 01:34 PM JST - 22nd August

Tatanka if they offered the same money, I would ask for more. Then take the money and enjoy Beijing
solarbuster at 01:44 PM JST - 22nd August

Pasha 51 why promote engineering and science among students when you will lose most of them when they graduate. You have to want to be an engineer or scientist they are born, not created in a class room. You have look after the ones you get, the people who think they want to be engineers because of other personal agendas don't last in engineering, it is too demanding.
cnc at 03:04 PM JST - 22nd August

I was a mechanical engineer by profession, my job skills required me to program and create anything from a block of metal on a machining center. I loved my job so much so that I continued with it for more than three years. I will try and list some of the reasons why in the end I decided to leave.

One problem was that the pay sucked (140,000 basic + allowances - taxes/pension = 220,000/month) and even though I envied my peers in other fields, who were earning nearly twice as much, I still stuck to my job because I loved it...that is till I came across a way better opportunity in a totally unrelated field.

The second problem was that I was never respected for what I could do, the bullying and other degradory treatment I had to go through because of where I am from. There were four of us in a company of 60+ employees (one year the company gave all the Japanese staff bonuses and were instructed to hide the fact from us foreigners, it only took one guy to get drunk at the bonenkai).

There were Japanese hopefuls who were hired in as apprentices but none lasted more than two weeks because they couldn't handle the manual labour one had to do with the job. Everyone was looking to make easy money.

My seniors were starting to get jealous because i had learnt what I could from them and was improving efficiency which resulted in making production runs shorter than what my senseis were showing on record. Their way of retaliating was by destroying during lunch what I completed in the morning. This happened for a while and the management had a deaf ear to my complaints because my word as a foreigner didn't count for much.

I left and within a year amid rising raw material costs the company was forced to go bankrupt.

As somepne who has worked with the working-class Japanese, I can confidently say that they only will let foreigners in where they want some sort of dirty work done and love exploiting you where they know it will hurt you.

Their immigration laws are a very big sham and their diplomatic relations are only bully tactics that they force on third world countries by threatening them with suspension of their ODA. Their human rights laws are a sham and the government actively participates in covering up all violations, lest their precious image be tarnished. (more than half the institutions registered to employ workers under the skills training program, violate all rules and treat their guests like shit. I had aa acquaintance who came to Japan on such a program and his employer took his passport, his father died and they refused to give him the passport. I contacted the police about it they, the police were telling me that the company had the right to do what it did. I think that only the issuing country or embassy has the right to take your passport away from you).

I still laugh at the thought that they were pushing for a permanent weat in the UN
LIBERTAS at 03:54 PM JST - 22nd August

cnc Great post! I loved your finale: I still laugh at the thought that they were pushing for a permanent seat in the UN! Can you IMAGINE this level of dithering at the Security Council? Ha! Domestic problems like the topic here about, but they choose not to fix it. I couldn't imagine all the head-tilting and sucking of wind through the teeth that would happen in a crisis!
betamax at 07:49 PM JST - 22nd August

It is not just japan that is suffering from a lack of engineering skills.

The UK, Australia, Middle East and several other places are suffering from this shortage.

It is a problem of attracting people into the various engineering fields at a young age. Many universities in the UK don't have enough numbers applying for places on engineering courses. This in turn makes it difficult to justify running the course financially. It is a vicious cycle that may seriously start to cramp their ability to compete globally.

The truth is that engineers make EVERYTHING. The machines that manufacture cars, planes, soap, packaging, tables, refine fuel, make electricity, air conditioners, paper, pencils, computers, books. Literally EVERY PRODUCT has needed an engineer to work on it at some point.

I am an engineer in the UK. I worked for a biological laboratory automation comapany and now on control systems for gas turbines (powerplants).

I would love to come and live and work in Japan, but I fear my family and I would not be welcome. My wife is a doctor (General Practicioner) and we have just had a son (7 months old).

My wifes qualifications, I do not know if they are recognised. I love japanese culture and cuteness. My karaoke skills are unmatched. I love japanese rock and punk music. I would watch anime ALL the time if I could.

Anyway, I am just saying that the Japanese make it very difficult for foreigners like myself to even consider attempting to move over, even though in the rest of the world we have highly desirable skills and would not claim social benefits, just pay high rates of tax.

Its a bit backward.
betamax at 07:51 PM JST - 22nd August

Oh, and I pay for my software. (but I get big discounts through my engineering institute)
ca1ic0cat at 09:21 PM JST - 22nd August

the US has the same problem with engineering shortages. Back in the times of Brunel, Edison and even later technology and the people who made it happen were considered heroes of the age. Any more engineers are just tools to be used and tossed aside. The net results is that fewer young people want to get into a field where they are going to be left behind by their peers - much like cnc and libertas experienced.

This isn't a problem unique to Japan. If you want to be an engineer I would think that the best places to be are China and, possibly, India. In the rest of the world it's a good living but that's about it.

Sad how things have turned out.
Good_Jorb at 11:30 PM JST - 22nd August

If you want to be an engineer I would think that the best places to be are China and, possibly, India.

Or any country with Oil & Gas.
OgieDoggie at 02:56 AM JST - 23rd August

I have been in IT for over 25 years in the U.S. so I have seen the trend. We are told that the U.S. like Japan is short on IT people but I see kids coming out of college with IT degrees and can't find jobs. But at my work I see them importing their new people from India. These imported workers aren't any smarter they just work for half the pay. Japan I believe is going thru the same thing. It just makes me sick to see this next generation of college students having to get into another line of work because of this.
kaminarikeizai at 02:26 PM JST - 23rd August

OgieDoggie I agree with you. Even many of these IT engineers are not real IT engineers. They are just JLTP 3 or 4 with 6 months Diploma in IT. These people you can find in all major banks in Japan. Many of them are dispatched to Japan without any insurance cover. These people are victim of haken Companies. Funny thing, many of them never paid any TAX to government even they live and work in Japan more than 1 year and Japan is also not taking this problem seriously.

I admire these people and their living style, when they cooked and ate food with their community. These people are saving a lot in Japan even more than a Japanese person. We can learn it from these people. All major IT companies in the world hiring these cheap engineers. God help these people, as these cheap engineers are not getting right salary. No body can help American and Japanese IT engineers until government stop or ban outsourcing. Big MNC thinks only its profit.
TheNewZen at 06:22 PM JST - 23rd August

Don't get me started on the level of IT Engineers in japan and the world in general. Shudders.

In Japan anyone from an Operator to an Analyst is an "Engineeer". Happy to be out of that profession now(was in it for 25yrs), I did more power-point stuff than IT work when I was still employed in japan. All the company worried about was the sales figures and their reputation/image.

As for the high-skilled Chinese and Indian Engineers better nothing said. We tried to outsource some work to China only to delay the project and do it in-house. Their so-called "fluent" japanese speakers wouldn't pass JLPT 4.

Grrr.
Badsey at 07:46 PM JST - 23rd August

true technicians are hard to create and it takes years of experience. =the Master system works for great manufacturing brands like Mercedes and BMW.

True Engineers are hard to find, many move up to management and others start their own companies. In order for Japan to be innovative you really need both and few companies do well fostering a creative and appealing environment.

Look at what companies like Google do to find and then retain talent = and their products show it. Great people and good culture make these companies work -but management forgets that = disaster.
GW at 09:56 PM JST - 23rd August

betamax

Come to Jpn a few times for holidays, enjoy what interests you, but I think you wud be making a huge mistake to come & live here, chances are yr wife wudnt be able to practice medicine, its very hard for working couples with children to come here unless yr on the expat thing where everything is paid, in either case the stress will get to you sooner rather than later, visit but forget about living here unless your young & single then it cud work for you
TheNewZen at 07:12 AM JST - 24th August

Have to agree with GW.