But regardless, no, there is nowhere near as much violent death here in Japan. It is one of the safest countries in the world. The high death rate is due to the aging population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan
Business visas are fine, I've had 5 people join my team from the US in the last few months. The June thing is for tourists, which are still not allowed in.
It's great as long as you work for a US tech company. The selection is pretty limited though. As far as companies with 'US adjacent salary bands'* you've got Amazon, Google, Indeed and now Doordash/Wolt (disclosure, I lead the eng org for DD/W in Tokyo). Also Stripe, I guess.
There are a number of Tier 2 companies which are pretty foreigner friendly but don't have the same level of pay - Rakuten, Line, etc. So if you're willing to compromise a little then there are a lot more options.
*By US adjacent, I don't mean literally as high as in the US, but maybe within 70-90% of a similar role in the states.
Yeah, I'm currently going through the process of getting a mortgage for a property in Tokyo. I'm also interviewing about a potential job - nothing unusual there, moving around every 2-4 years is common in the software industry.
I was told in no uncertain terms by my real estate agent "Do not move company until your loan is approved. You're already impacted by the fact you work for a foreign company, and you will probably get declined if you start somewhere new."
The fact that I'd likely be looking at a substantial raise and therefore be in a better position to pay off any mortgage is irrelevant, the bank just cares about stability.
(I'm sure you already understand this, this story is for the benefit of other curious thread-readers)
Even if you don't like Scott Adams (And I don't particularly like the guy myself), I don't think that should invalidate the specific statement that the article quotes, which should be able to stand on its own regardless of the background of the person saying it.
Minor correction, it's 就職活動 (shuushoku katsudou) not seishoku. And the age of starting families here is older than you mention at close to 30 [1], especially in recent years. That's not to say it doesn't happen, just that Japanese couples don't, on average, get married much younger than in the west.
You're right about paying people differently based on life circumstances - but this generally happens in the form of substantial tax cuts for couples with a non/part time working wife (e.g. [2]), rather than by paying them more (although there are some government benefits like a child allowance).
Mostly nitpicking here! Appreciate your contributions to this thread, you're right on the money for the most part
They exist - I work for Indeed and there's a 4 day week option that started being offered last year in response to covid and has now become an official policy. The problem is that companies that do it don't tend to advertise it I guess.
I completely agree with you. How do you prevent this happening? I've relocated from a team where I used to be a software engineer on the team (and therefore had a peer-level understanding of the systems) to one in a different company where I'm starting from day 1 as a manager. How do you maintain/build that localized domain knowledge? It doesn't feel like it's solvable by doing a week of coding now and again.
