“Where are the young Japanese people?” — The generation that stopped supporting low-wage labor and the quietly changing social structure

Recently, it has become normal to see foreign staff working when you enter convenience stores or restaurants.

7-Eleven
FamilyMart
Sukiya

It is a common sight wherever you go.

This is not a matter of good or bad.
However, a simple question arises.

Where are the young Japanese people now?

■ The declining birthrate is not just a problem of “numbers”

Japan has a declining birthrate.
The absolute number of young people is decreasing.
But the essence is not the number.

In a society with a shrinking population,
young people become a “scarce resource.”
Scarce resources flow to places with better conditions.

In other words, what is happening now is
not the evaporation of young people, but their reallocation.

■ Withdrawal from low-wage labor

Convenience stores and dining out are:

・Difficult to get hourly wage increases
・Physically demanding
・Hard to see future pay raises

Structurally, it is difficult to build a long-term career.

During the period of high economic growth or when the population was large,
young people supported those workplaces.

But it is different now.

In a society where young people have decreased and options have increased,
“people leave jobs with poor conditions first”
This is a natural market principle.

■ Foreign labor as an adjustment valve

What is functioning there is foreign labor.

The Technical Intern Training Program and the Specified Skilled Worker system
have effectively become “supplementary devices for labor-short industries.”

This is not a matter of good or evil, but a structural issue.

If there were no foreign workers,

・Convenience stores would reduce late-night operations
・Dining out prices would rise
・Regional stores would close

resulting in an increase in the cost of living.

In other words, Japan today
maintains a “low-price society” through foreign labor.

■ Young people have simply acted rationally

Have young people become weaker?
It might be the opposite.

・Avoiding jobs with little future potential
・Recognizing burnout early
・Quitting if it doesn't fit

What resignation agencies symbolize is
not a decline in patience, but
a judgment that “the return on investment for enduring is not worth it.”

In a society with no margin,
they feel no point in pushing themselves to continue.
That is not emotion, but rationality.

■ Are the competition ratios for stable jobs falling?

If young people decrease, theoretically the competition ratio should fall.

But at the same time,

・Companies are narrowing down the number of hires
・Skill requirements are rising
・Non-regular employment is increasing

In other words, the entrance is not widening, only the quality is rising.

This does not mean it is “getting easier,”
but that the form of competition has changed.

■ The quietly progressing three-way polarization

Young people are now divided into three directions.

✔ The group that moves up using skills as a weapon
✔ The group that continues normally without standing out
✔ The group that is fixed in non-regular or unemployed status

Society has not collapsed.
But it is not homogeneous either.
It is quietly dividing.

■ Who has really changed?

The feeling that “there are no young people”
is not because they have disappeared.
It is because young Japanese people have stopped taking on low-wage labor.

This is not a generation's indulgence.
It is an extremely natural redistribution in a depopulating society.

If so, what we should ask is,
not where did the young people go,
but why have those jobs stopped being chosen by young Japanese people?

Social structures always change shape from the weakest points.

A convenience store cash register
might be a microcosm of the Japanese labor market right now.