<story><title>Nintendo Will Pay Its Workers 10% More</title><url>https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-will-pay-its-workers-10-more/1100-6511268/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>habibur</author><text>I was wondering why software industry didn&amp;#x27;t take off in Japan like in the USA.&lt;p&gt;Now I know. It&amp;#x27;s the employment rules that makes firing people hard once recruited.</text></item><item><author>laurieg</author><text>Japanese employment law is a bit of a double edged sword.  It&amp;#x27;s very difficult to fire employees, so if you hire someone on a high salary and it turns out they weren&amp;#x27;t worth it you are now stuck with an employee for years or decades.  You basically have to show that employee is malicious to get rid of them.  Low wages is one way to soften this risk.&lt;p&gt;The other side of this is many people are not full time employees.  Dispatch (派遣) employees are employed by one company and then sent to work alongside regular employees at other companies, with the dispatch company taking a good slice.  The employer is now able to shrink their workforce more easily and the employee gets a smaller piece of the pie.&lt;p&gt;Simply writing a temporary contract might not even be enough.  Recent changes to the law say that if you have been on temporary contract that is renewed for 5 years then you have the right to full time employment with the same conditions.  Now you see plenty of people getting let go at 4 years, just to be on the safe side.</text></item><item><author>nickpeterson</author><text>I’ve always heard that Japanese software developers were very poorly paid compared to their us counterparts. This 10% might be pretty terrible if your peers received large raises for years beforehand.&lt;p&gt;I do feel like something is off with Nintendo, their games seem very scarce recently. Either they’re launching a new system this year at e3 or Covid really messed up their dev practices.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>diceduckmonk</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s much more complex than that.&lt;p&gt;Japan has the lowest TOEFL score in Asia amongst 30+ countries. English proficiency is much higher in both advanced and developing Asian economies. This is not inherently a blocker for software development, but it reflects a trend counter to globalization and being receptive to American practices.&lt;p&gt;Japan has less billionaires than both Hong Kong, SK and Taiwan, all of which have a fraction of the population. Tax policy is one part of this, but there is a cultural aversion to risk taking. The typical apartment lease is 2+ years, which reflects the sense to long term commitment. There&amp;#x27;s also more restrictive regulation and actually following policies to the tee. Even human-powered bicycles require registration and not too powerful e-bikes requires license plates, registration, insurance. All of this means there are less startups, less startup ecosystem, less hackers. Heck, Indonesia has since grown a more vibrant startup ecosystem and even deca-unicorns.&lt;p&gt;Also reigning in from Japan&amp;#x27;s manufacturing era is prioritizing reliability and virtueing craft. Japan is still building appliances and electronics that last decades, which is at odds with the SDLC chasing shiny new features for smartphones every year. Unfortunately, consumers have spoke with their wallets that they value updates more than reliability. Ironically, Japan&amp;#x27;s software is pretty crap and not reliable. My bank is one of the more vibrants one, going through a DX digital experience &amp;#x2F; &amp;quot;digital transformation&amp;quot; as it is called, but all of the technology, hardware and software is atrocious. It&amp;#x27;s been the second time within a year where my ATM card has stopped working because it&amp;#x27;s gotten demagnetized. It&amp;#x27;s a lot of security theater.</text></comment>
<story><title>Nintendo Will Pay Its Workers 10% More</title><url>https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-will-pay-its-workers-10-more/1100-6511268/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>habibur</author><text>I was wondering why software industry didn&amp;#x27;t take off in Japan like in the USA.&lt;p&gt;Now I know. It&amp;#x27;s the employment rules that makes firing people hard once recruited.</text></item><item><author>laurieg</author><text>Japanese employment law is a bit of a double edged sword.  It&amp;#x27;s very difficult to fire employees, so if you hire someone on a high salary and it turns out they weren&amp;#x27;t worth it you are now stuck with an employee for years or decades.  You basically have to show that employee is malicious to get rid of them.  Low wages is one way to soften this risk.&lt;p&gt;The other side of this is many people are not full time employees.  Dispatch (派遣) employees are employed by one company and then sent to work alongside regular employees at other companies, with the dispatch company taking a good slice.  The employer is now able to shrink their workforce more easily and the employee gets a smaller piece of the pie.&lt;p&gt;Simply writing a temporary contract might not even be enough.  Recent changes to the law say that if you have been on temporary contract that is renewed for 5 years then you have the right to full time employment with the same conditions.  Now you see plenty of people getting let go at 4 years, just to be on the safe side.</text></item><item><author>nickpeterson</author><text>I’ve always heard that Japanese software developers were very poorly paid compared to their us counterparts. This 10% might be pretty terrible if your peers received large raises for years beforehand.&lt;p&gt;I do feel like something is off with Nintendo, their games seem very scarce recently. Either they’re launching a new system this year at e3 or Covid really messed up their dev practices.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>htag</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s always more than one reason for such a complex question.  It would be just as fair to say the Japanese economy was more focused on manufacturing then services when the software industry really started to boom and by the time they transitioned to a service based economy their population was skewed too old to be a major player in the new industry.</text></comment>