Lifetime Employment

In most large Japanese companies, there is a policy of lifetime employment. What this means is that when people leave school or university to join an enterprise, they can expect to remain with that organization until they retire. In effect, the employee gets job security for life, and can only be fired for serious mistakes in work. Even in times of business recession, he or she is free from the fear of being laid off.

One result of this practice is that the Japanese worker is identified closely with his company and feels strong loyalty to it. By working hard for the company, he believes he is safeguarding his own future. It is not surprising that devotion to one's company is considered a great virtue in Japan. A man is often prepared to put his firm's interests before those of his immediate family.

The job security guaranteed by this system influences the way employers approach their work. They tend to think in terms of what they can achieve throughout their career. This is because they are not judged by how they are performing during a short period of time. They can afford to take a longer perspective than their Western counterparts.

The marriage between the employee and the company—the consequence of lifetime employment—may explain why Japanese workers seem positively to love the products their company is producing and why they are willing to stay on after work, for little overtime pay, to participate in earnest discussions about the quality control of their products.