Japan’s young workers head to Australia, eyeing higher pay, better work-life balance

Name: Japan’s population falls rapidly in 2023, losing the equivalent of San Francisco
Uploaded: 2024-04-14T02:00:19.000Z
Duration: 2 min 51 s
Description: Japan’s population falls rapidly in 2023, losing the equivalent of San Francisco

Some 14,00 Japanese were granted working holiday visas in Australia in fiscal 2022-23, the highest number in Australian government data going back to 2001

In 2022, average annual wages in Japan were US$41,509, compared with Australia’s US$59,408 and US$77,463 in the US, according to the OECD

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A Japanese business man investor stands amid downtown buildings. Numerous young Japanese workers are flocking to Australia in search of higher pay. Photo: Shutterstock

Bloomberg

Published: 10:00am, 14 Apr 2024

Tomoki Yoshihara starts his shift at a meat-processing plant in rural Australia at 5am, and earns three times more butchering lamb for almost 50 hours a week than he did as a member of Japan’s military.

He’s among a record number of young Japanese granted working holiday visas in Australia last financial year, lured by higher wages that are made even more attractive by the weakening yen.

“From a salary perspective, it’s so much better here,” said the 25-year-old, who earns around A$5,000 (US$3,300) a month after tax and lives in Goulburn, south of Sydney. “If you want to save money, Australia is the place to be.”

With similar visa programmes in the UK, Canada and New Zealand recovering post pandemic, the outflow of talent risks exacerbating Japan’s acute labour shortage. It’s also a sign that many younger Japanese aren’t buying into the nation’s economic optimism as it exits from decades of deflation.

“Youth are questioning Japan’s economic outlook,” said Yuya Kikkawa, an economist at Meiji Yasuda Research Institute. “Living conditions are far tougher than the headline inflation figure suggests.”

The Bank of Japan finally scrapped the world’s last negative interest rate last month amid signs a virtuous cycle of wage gains is feeding demand-led inflation. But even after Japanese trade unions won their biggest wage hike in more than 30 years last month, there remains a notable gap in real wages with other advanced economies.

In 2022, average annual wages in Japan were US$41,509, compared with Australia’s US$59,408 and US$77,463 in the US, according to the latest data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

02:51

Japan’s population falls rapidly in 2023, losing the equivalent of San Francisco