Japan worried about engineering "shortages," too

The New York Times reports this week that "Japan is running out of engineers."

The reasons cited: fewer young people, reduced enrollment rates in engineering classes, and an unwillingness on the part of foreigners to immigrate.

This is pretty telling:

Some young Japanese, products of a rich society, unfamiliar with the postwar hardships many of their parents and grandparents knew, do not see the value in slaving over plans and numbers when they could make money, have more contact with other people or have more fun.

So if I understand correctly, because the previous generation had unpleasant jobs (out of necessity), the current one should, too. Voluntarily. In spite of more attractive alternatives. Hmmm.... So because my father worked in a coal mine, I should seek out a difficult, dangerous, low-paying job, too?

Masafumi Hikita, a 24-year-old electric engineering senior, said most of his former high school classmates chose college majors in economics to pursue “easier money” in finance and banking. In fact, friends and neighbors were surprised he picked a difficult field like engineering, he said, with a reputation for long hours.

Unlike the US, Japan has a hard time importing people willing to pick up the slack:

While ingrained xenophobia is partly to blame, companies say Japan’s language and closed corporate culture also create barriers so high that many foreign engineers simply refuse to come, even when they are recruited.

Sounds like this is a problem with a simple solution: pay people more and/or restructure jobs to reduce hours and increase contact with other people. And because the importation option seems not to be going so well, this appears to be happening, albeit slowly:

Headhunters have begun poaching engineers midcareer with fat signing bonuses, a predatory practice once unheard-of in Japan’s less-cutthroat version of capitalism.

...

[Nissan] emphasizes that it offers faster promotions, bigger pay raises and even “career coaches” to help young talent ascend the corporate ladder.