Study On The Formation Of Labor's Skill In Japan

At present, our country faces the requirement of economic growth pattern transition and taking new industrializing ways, but in the progress of market-oriented economy system transition, human capital investment is inadequate and investing structure is irrational, which have restricted the economic pattern transition seriously. On the other hand, in the labor market, low-skilled labor force gluts and high-skilled labor force is in short supply, which are the result of long-term deficient formation model of labor's skill, so if the contradiction of short supply of labor's vocational skill is not completely resolved, the difficult problem of employment cannot be broken through. There is some resemblance between Japan and China in economy developing progress and industry structure, and Japanese concrete ways of promoting formation of labor's vocational skill can offer experience as reference for Chinese present period.Labor's skill is the sum total of knowledge, skill and ability that the labor needs to complete given task on his subjective desire. Labor's skill is the main representative and the main component of human capital, and, even in a certain sense, there is inter-convertibility between labor's skill and human capital. Therefore, the formation of labor's skill is in conformity with the general law of human capital investment. Labor's skill can be divided into three types of I, II and III.The model of labor's vocational skill in Japan mainly consists the pre-job skill training before being employed and the firm-provided skill training after being employed. The former includes training courses offered in schools and occupational skill education in special training schools, in elementary education period. Training schools consist of vocation high schools, training classes, special training schools, short-term colleges and so on, which provide vocational skill training in view of different targets. The pre-job skill training is general skill education, and the skill that the labor acquires can be employed in different firms, so the cost of the pre-job skill training is paid by the labor individually.After employed, the labor accepts skill training provided by firms. Firm-provided skill training includes workers training, technical research fellows training and managerial staffs training, and the ways of training consist of OJT (On-Job Training) and Off-JT (Off-Job Training). Firm-provided skill training is especially for special use, which cost is mainly paid by forms and less paid by the labor individually.The pre-job skill training and the firm-provided skill training complement each other, but it most bases on the firm-provided skill training, so firms play important roles in the formation of labor's skill, the model of which is interwoven with the function of Japanese internal labor market. First, the practice of life-employment in Japanese firms has high economic rationality for the formation of labor's skill. In Japan, large firms commonly adopt long-run employment system. Even if they face running difficulty, firms take employing adjustment measure firstly, and seldom lay off employees; meanwhile, the judicial system has restricted firms'lay-off action seriously. The long-run engagement between firms and employees can help reduce human capital investment risk, and firms can not only be at ease to invest in labor's special skill but also in general skill. When they introduce advanced technique and manufacturing facilities, firms hardly meet strong resistance from employees. So Japanese firms invest in human capital continuously and widely.Second, Japanese firms'position and salary promotion system based on ability plays a positive encouraging role in the formation of labor's skill. The internal-prior promotion system and the long-term selection system taken by Japanese firms help firms make a complete objective assessment for employees and reduce the unconformity of the information between firms and employees. This ability assessment is beneficial for more employees to accept skill training positively and they can get promotion in position and salary due to their skill level improvement. On one hand, annual-serial payment and promotion system provides fair chances of competition for employees who enters the firm in the same period; on the other hand, it ensures that senior employees'benefit cannot be hurt due to new employees'skill level improvement, and contributes to skill's passing on between young and senior employees.Third, Japanese unique firm union also plays an important role in the formation of labor's skill. Through the struggle, firm union can realize the fair treatment for employees in the firm, eliminate payment differences due to different posts, and guarantee that more low-post employees can acquire equal chances of skill training. Firm union can also share firm's managing information, have a given speaking effect, and protect employees'benefit not to be hurt when it represents employees to complain.Besides internal labor market, the change of Japanese economic structure also brings important impact on the formation of labor's skill.First, the change of Japanese economic structure promotes the improvement of labor's skill structure. In view of the structure of output value and labor's employment, after WWII, the ratio of the primary industry inclines fast and the ratio of the secondary and tertiary industry grows rapidly, but the change of labor's employment structure lags behind the change of industrial structure. The change of industry structure means that the demand structure for labor's skill should change accordingly. The ratio of Skill I and Skill II inclines fast, the ratio of Skill III increases consistently, and especially the demand of"advanced knowledge-skill"reacting to uncertainty increases greatly.Second, the change of Japanese occupational structure has an influence on the formation of labor's skill. In some degree, the correspondence between labor's skill and occupation is higher than that between it and industry. In modern society, the industrial nature of labor's skill is possible to be weakened, but its occupational nature is becoming stronger. With the economic development, Japanese occupational structure has changed greatly, the division of occupation becomes more and more obvious, and some labor's skill can be employed across trades, but cannot go across the occupational boundary. The division of occupation makes human capital investment tend to the hard first and the easy second, and the advanced first and the low second. The differences of labor's skill level become the obstacle between the higher occupation group and the lower occupation group.This thesis focuses on the objective assessment of the formation model of Japanese labor's skill. In view of human capital investment, the model of the formation of labor's skill in Japan meets the fundamental principle of human capital investment, the focus of which is to reduce the investment risk by the ways of scattered investing and so on. The Japanese experiences in the formation model of labor's skill include:1. The tradition of highly valuing labor's vocational skill. With the function of public opinion and law, all sections of Japanese people achieve the common view on investing in human.2. Combine the pre-job skill training with the firm-provided skill training. The pre-job skill training and the firm-provided skill training provide general skill training and firm's special skill training respectively, the costs of which are paid by labors and firms respectively, which division accords to the general principle of skill training and the basic principle of the formation of labor's skill.3. Internal labor market offers systematical guarantee. The low-mobile labor market contributes to forming high-level balance of human capital investment. Japanese firms'systems and practices, such as long-run employment, internal-prior promotion, employees'turning posts, etc., reduce the human capital investment risk greatly, and ensure that firm's investment of skill training maintains a high level.4. Firms play a leading role. Firm is not only the manufacturing union of material production and service, but also of human capital. It is the provider of skill training and also the demander of labor's skill. So firms should play a leading role in human capital investment positively. The success of Japanese firms skill training lays on the firm's specialization of general skill.5. Vocational skill is adjusted with the change of economic structure. The content and the formation model of Japanese labor's skill training go closely with the changing tendency of economic structure and adjust continuously with the demand of industry structure, so it can supply the demand change of industrial development.But, there is the obvious imperfection in the formation model of Japanese labor's skill.1. The cost of firms'human capital investment is high. To reduce the investment risk, Japanese firms take all-employees training and long-run training, which scattered investment can achieve the aim of reducing the risk but raise the investment cost.2. The systems of assessment and promotion are becoming rigid. In the implementation, the systems of assessment and promotion based on ability are becoming formalized, cannot play their original roles, change into the rigid annual-serial payment and promotion system, and weaken the encouraging function to the formation of labor's skill.3. Ignoring the differences of labor's individual demand. Firm-provided skill training overstresses the firm's demand and seldom considers the demand of labor's individual occupational development. When they two cannot achieve uniformity, the labor's initiative is apt to be hurt.4. Market exclusion exists in the formation of labor's skill. The formation model of Japanese labor'skill excludes given groups, such as informal employees, female labor and so on, the formation of which labor's vocational skill faces obstacles.In the 1990s, after the breakdown of the economic bubble, Japanese economy has fallen into the long-term depression and its unique operational mode has changed gradually. Moreover, with the change of population structure and social perception in Japan, the formation model of labor's skill faces revolution. But this revolution is to improve and perfect its original model, not to change it at all.Based on the analysis of the formation model of labor's skill and its influential factors, the thesis compares it with the process of the formation model of Chinese labor's skill. In the period of planned economy, the formation model of Chinese labor's skill has resemblance with Japanese model and contributes to the accumulation of human capital and the rising of labor's skill level. But in the transition towards market-oriented economy system, based on the different choice of the function of labor market, China goes on a different developing direction from Japan. In the process of labor market formation, China has been over-emphasizing the function of optimizing fitting to human capital, taking promoting labor moving as an only means and ignoring the promoting function of establishing internal labor market to the formation of labor's skill, which result in firms'investment level in human capital declining. High-mobile labor market can only improve the fitting to human capital, but cannot enlarge human capital stock.At present, China faces the urgent demand of economic growth pattern transition, but adjusting the industrial structure is hard and the problem of employing is serious, which have a close relationship with the gap between labor's skill structure and the demand of market. If China wants to become a strong country of human capital from the country with large human resources, it is necessary to eliminate the factors of restricting human capital investment, and to set up the beneficial system for human capital investment. In the condition of market-oriented economy system, tightening internal labor market building helps raise firms'investment level in human capital and is important to the formation of labor's skill.