‘Kanko kankai’ (tourism pollution) is the latest buzz phrase here in Japan as the double-edged samurai sword of the visitor boom continues to cause profit but also pain. The latest problem, along with the overcrowding, poor behaviour, and squeezed out locals, is a shortage of staff at the main attractions and the hotels and restaurants that surround them. Which, given the importance of quality service in Japanese culture, is a veritable crisis.
Healthcare, distribution and agriculture are all facing, to varying degrees, serious issues due to a lack of manpower
There is nothing especially new in this. Labour shortages have long been a problem as the society ages, the fertility rate remains low and the pool of fit young people shrinks. Healthcare, distribution and agriculture are all facing, to varying degrees, serious issues due to a lack of manpower.
This doesn’t just hit the bottom line (the cost of the Osaka Expo 2025 has already doubled in part due to labour shortages) but can impact safety. The number of construction workers has fallen by 30 per cent since 1997 (there are five openings for each jobseeker) making the speedy reconstruction of the Noto peninsular, devastated by the earthquake at New Year, an almost impossible task.
But hospitality has got off relatively lightly, in part thanks to the high percentage of students, who habitually, and admirably, have part-time jobs (Disneyland is a plum position) and the fairly predictable and thus easy to plan for numbers of expected visitors. But in the face of the unparalleled tourist onslaught even this resource is proving inadequate. Kyoto, for example, with its treasure chest of glittering attractions, now receives 43 million visitors a year, so many that at times avenues leading to the most desirable locations can become gridlocked with human traffic.
In May the Japan Federation of Service & Tourism Industries Workers Union announced that according to survey results 85 per cent of travel and hospitality businesses had reported having to reduce their operating hours or limit their offer as a result of labour shortages. Hotels and ryokans (traditional Japanese inns) along with restaurants and museums are constantly looking for staff and there has been a surge in the number of tanpatsu (one-time) workers who are summoned from agencies in an emergency, for one shift only. With no experience and little time for training, they have to muddle through as best they can
And it’s not just the high-profile attractions that are suffering. Earlier this year, Japan Today reported the increasing desperation of businesses in the red-light district of Shinjuku, with signs in the gaudy windows of host-clubs and massage parlours almost begging for part-timers. Examples included ‘even a few hours a week will do!’ and (my goodness) ‘we don’t mind people with piercing, tattoos, beards or nail art.’
Authorities are having to be flexible. Immigration rules have been relaxed with more than two million foreigners, twice as many as 20 years ago, now working in Japan. Over 80,000 foreigners now work in convenience stores in Japan. Your green tea in Gion in Kyoto is as likely to be served by someone from the Philippines or Thailand as Japan.
There is also a renewed emphasis on technology which the government rather hopefully believe will ride to the rescue. Progress has been slow, though and some of the ambitious tech-based personnel initiatives have proved rather amusing failures. 120 robots were once ‘laid off’ from a Japanese hotel after they created more work than they completed.
An easier, if partial, solution in the short term might be just to raise wages and ease working conditions, but here progress has been glacial. Wages have risen a bit but with agencies taking a hefty cut, and the traditional Japanese working style is unchanged. Shifts are long, hard, with no talking to colleagues, no chance of being made full-time and no fun basically. No wonder many who could potentially take up hospitality work are choosing either to do nothing, or are flitting from one dead end position to another. An ex-colleague of mine once told me she was on her 37th part-time job.
Where is this leading? Anyone curious as to what Japanese service may soon look like should watch the brilliant Wim Wenders film Perfect Days which follows the daily life a toilet cleaner of showpiece conveniences (which have now become tourist attractions) in the central Tokyo area.
In the film the Japanese actor Koji Yakusho plays a middle-aged cleaner who applies himself to his largely thankless work with a diligence and meticulousness that amounts to almost love. Sharing his van, for a while at least, is a young part-timer who does a half-hearted job and quits, without notice, after just a few weeks.
This may be a somewhat exaggerated representation, and a bit hard on the younger generation. Japanese hospitality, a source of great pride here, is likely to be pretty good for a while yet. But with a dwindling core of dedicated old school staff helped or hindered by far less motivated youngsters, it may not be too far off the mark.
As with so much in the ever-changing Japan, those wanting something approximating the traditional experience should come soon, while it lasts.
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