Re: [tlug] OT: interesting NY times article:High-Tech Japanese, Running Out of Engineers

[CL <az.4tlug@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> CL writes:
>
>  > Agreed.  Hamamatsu in 1979. 
>
> "At last, quality people!  Now I can really turn this country around!"
> The stats I've seen indicate that engineering grads in Japan were
> still increasing around 1980, it's just that demand was increasing
> more rapidly (of course the imbalance was especially bad in gaku-batsu
> shops like yours).

My job was in the motor industry and, back then, no one from Todai or 
any of the other "major" Kanto schools were even interviewed for 
positions by any member of that manufacturing group (except Nissan, and 
look what happened to them).  The consensus was that there was too much 
emphasis on getting into the school and not enough emphasis on the final 
product the faculty turned out.  The graduates of the other schools 
required less additional training and arrived better prepared to start 
working.  The company also operated its own technical high school for 
grades 10-12 where they covered such complex technical education as 
screwdriver theory and the proper way to pick up and wield your pliers 
and wrenches.

During a crisis when we had to meet a specific government contract 
delivery schedule, about ten of us volunteered to put in a shift on the 
line to help.  There was great consternation when it was found none of 
us used the line tools in the way that had been taught in the high 
school and great surprise that we knew what the tools were and what they 
did without additional instruction.

> What's interesting/scary about the parallel between the US in 1978 and
> Japan 2008 is that the scare talk is backed by real numbers regarding
> declining rikei enrollments.

You would have thought that the increasing number of "fashon," "esthe," 
and "karisuma biyoshi" shops replacing car and industrial equipment 
showrooms in places like Aoyama and Ginza, and the growing numbers of 
applicants for jobs in those places, as reported by Nikkei, Recruit, and 
the various job magazine publishers would have been a huge giveaway for 
anyone paying attention.

>  > In front of twelve Japanese and four roundeyes.
>
> <img src="eyes-roll-left.svg" />
> Rank hath its privileges.

The big surprise in 1979 was that the Wa-jin weren't supposed to air 
domestic dirty laundry in front of "guests."  And it was some of the 12 
Japanese who were the most uncomfortable by his pronouncements and kept 
telling the four of us "please forgive him, he's drunk."

> I have to admit it was not a no-brainer, though.  The Japanese neither
> want foreigners to stay a minute longer than they're needed for the
> job at hand, nor do they expect them to

That's what happened to me.  There was a Second Oil Shock recession in 
1980 and all foreigners working for manufacturers in Chubu and Kansai 
were sent home within a couple of weeks of one another.  When we got 
back to the US distributor, all of us were told that there was no job 
available and when we went looking for work among other manufacturers, 
all of us found that our former employers would not give us favorable 
recommendations out of fear we'd teach some American or German 
manufacturer Japanese "secrets."  Fortunately, someone at another 
Japanese auto manufacturer with whom I'd served on a technical standards 
committee knew of my work history and got his employer to make me a very 
favorable job offer specific to a project they were working on.

That sort of thing doesn't happen any more ... damn I just bit my tongue ...

--
CL