Thanks to the looming labor crunch nationwide, workers who once had to toil away in jobs with poor wages and working conditions now have a variety of options before them.

But what of the jobs, most essential to society, that they leave behind?

‘CHOOSE ON MY OWN’

Ryujiro Suka, 54, a former construction worker, left the building industry six months earlier. He is rejecting job requests from the original contractor with which he had long worked, stating they are “not financially rewarding.”

“I don’t care about” contractors plagued by the almost ubiquitous issue of diminishing workers, Suka said.

Suka had been working as a subcontractor to a subcontractor for more than 30 years since he dropped out of college and joined the construction industry when he was 23.

He had to listen to what first-tier contractors said within the industry’s pyramid employee structure. Suka constantly held himself back and accepted what he saw as unreasonable requests.

Suka also saw commissions deducted from what little money he should have received in his daily pay. He considered seeking employment elsewhere, only to find that only part-time offers were among the alternatives.

“I had no place to turn to,” recalled Suka. “That was an impasse.”

During that time, members of the young, working generation were on the decline. The total workforce peaked at 87 million people in 1995 but fell continuously to below 80 million in 2013.

The trend, coupled in part with the nation’s economic recovery, have led the ratio of job openings to job seekers to be above 1.0 on a continual basis since 2014.

Riding that bandwagon, Suka began working as a freelance delivery person in summer 2023.

His monthly income has topped 400,000 yen ($2,700), making the new occupation more profitable than in the construction industry.

Suka can decide whether to cater to delivery requests from high-rise apartments as ascending such buildings takes time. He is also freely able to skip patrons who don’t pay enough.

It is also possible for him to receive adjustment fares along with delivery fees, if Suka is on duty during busy hours with there being few staffers nearby. He found the mechanism particularly appealing, as he feels it only benefits him more.

However, his current job cannot be called ideal.

Deliverers are not hired by employers and the end of their outsourcing contracts means they have no place to work.

Nearly all customers say nothing to the deliverers, either--words of gratitude cannot be expected.

In the eyes of Suka, the delivery service is exclusively intended for wealthier individuals.

Suka also does not have any opportunities to take advantage of his refined skills. Visiting homes with packages does not provide him with a sense of achievement, which he said he had felt when engaging in massive public works projects.

“I’d love to go back to building sites if I could earn more,” said Suka. “I could discover the meaning of my work there.”

Despite this, Suka said it felt great succeeding in escaping the oppression he was long unable to resist.

“I was valued by neither the prime contractors nor the government,” Suka stressed. “It’s too late for them to ask me for help because of a personnel shortage. I have nothing to do with that. I can now choose where I want to work on my own.”

NEGATIVE REPERCUSSIONS

The number of laborers in the construction community--Suka’s old trade--plummeted to 4.79 million in 2022 from the peak in 1997 of 6.85 million.

The short-handed building industry is facing a far more serious situation. Highlighting an absolute shortage of workers, the community’s job opening-seeker rate was as high as 5.57 compared with the overall business average of 1.20 as of November.

The labor crunch in the construction business is beginning to have a negative impact in other areas. 

On the grounds of the 60-year-old Minoo B and C apartment complexes at a residential district in Minoo, Osaka Prefecture, sits a vast area of vacant land.

Work to replace the aging buildings was initially scheduled to begin in spring 2023, but the site remains untouched.

When new facilities will be constructed is unknown, though they were originally scheduled for completion in summer 2024.

The general contractor that won the bid withdrew from the project without adding new apartments after it dismantled the original buildings and made preparations for constructing the new complexes.

“This kind of thing had never happened before,” said a representative of Osaka Prefectural Housing Corp., which owns and manages the residential establishments.

The contractor alike stated discontinuing the construction was “the first such case for us.”

The general contractor won the bid in April 2022 for a total of 3.9 billion yen. However, just before construction of the new buildings was set to begin, the budget was reportedly insufficient to keep the project profitable.

Leaving projects that contractors win results in vast amounts of penalties. The companies are also not allowed to bid on other Osaka prefectural housing projects for a certain period. Above all, trust in the contractors takes a severe hit.

Despite this, the contactor decided to give up on the projects due to surges in material and worker costs deriving from a lack of personnel.

The general contractor determined the bidding price based on estimates on staffing and other costs submitted by more than one subcontractor. But the labor costs rose dramatically over the course of 18 months before the start of construction. 

Subcontractors refused to participate in the project, calling the suggested wages for workers “too low right now.”

The general contractor recounted how competition to lure subcontractors has been heating up.

“Even with higher wages we can only secure five workers, at times, for a project needing 10 workers,” said an official of the contractor.

It is still unclear when the 140 families of the original buildings who are tentatively living in apartments nearby will be able to move into their new homes.

A woman in her 80s said she had lived on the third floor of one of the housing complexes for almost 50 years. She was looking forward to seeing her apartment building outfitted with an elevator following its refurbishment.

“It is virtually unrealistic given my health conditions to climb stairs,” she said, expressing disappointment. “I did not imagine the project would be affected by the decreasing workforce.”

A resident in her 40s who had found a home there with her elderly parents expressed her dismay at the circumstances.

“I have heard that construction activities are suspended in various regions,” she said. “All we can do is to just tough it out.”

While the emerging labor-strapped society of Japan has offered workers with more options, it also means workers walking away from essential jobs such as construction work, impacting the lives of many in the process.

LOOMING CRISIS

Japan is projected to be short of 11 million workers in 2040, according to a report on prospects released by the Recruit Works Institute in 2023.

Fewer people will work in the years leading up to 2040, while the population of individuals aged 85 and over will reach 10 million, up from 6.1 million in 2020. Elderly citizens 65 years or older are forecast to account for one-third of all Japanese then.

Working with the Recruit Works Institute, The Asahi Shimbun looked deeper into the problem, examining how this change in demographic dynamics will produce a significant gap between demand and supply in the labor market.

Phenomena that can no longer be explained by conventional expertise were uncovered in many fields in the process.

Labor shortages are not necessarily bad for human resources. Companies compete to offer higher wages and better working conditions, making it easier for workers to select offers best suited for them.

The pitfall, however, is that workers will likely avoid unpopular jobs. Such work includes services and offerings indispensable for people’s lives and safety nets.

With posters looking for drivers put up all over, NX Logistics Research Institute and Consulting Inc., an affiliate of logistics firm Nippon Express Co., predicts that the total transportation capacity will plunge by 34 percent compared to fiscal 2019 by fiscal 2030 unless proper countermeasures are taken.

At least 940 million tons of goods will be left undelivered, potentially bringing an end to services such as being able to order something online and receive it the next day.

Bus drivers running along fixed regular routes are in short supply as well. Subsequently, operations have been reduced or permanently ended in many areas of the nation, depriving locals of a means of transit.

Workers are also shying away from industries marked by physical labor, low salaries, long working hours, night shifts, unreasonable complaints from customers, inconveniently located offices and various other elements.

These fields are already experiencing a severe workforce shortage.

Competition to win over job seekers will intensify further from here on out, making it increasingly difficult for employers to find employees.

Workers may also decide to leave such employers if they are unsatisfied with their jobs, exacerbating those industries’ declines.

(This article was written by Taishi Sasayama and Akiyoshi Abe.)