Nenkô

With the Japan, nenkô indicates the system by which the employees touch more and more with the age. This principle is translated by advance at the age or principle of seniority .

This system rests on two principles:

the employees touch little at the time of their first years of work.

the employees work all their life in the same company and the companies guarantee an use with life to them.

This system was the symbol for the Westerners (European and American) of the Japanese work world. Nevertheless, it is necessary to moderate the principle of the nenkô . On the one hand, only the large companies offered this advantage (the small companies and subcontractors laid off much more than the large companies, at the time of the economic crisis). In addition, these last years, the evolution of the company since the Eighties ten supported the decline of advance at the age, quote:

liberalization/increased universalization of the economy;
the wilder competition of the Asian countries (for example, the China, where the wages are forty times less high (years 1990) for agriculture and the textiles);
the ageing of the population which caused a reduction in the number of young people and an increase in elderly, therefore the companies must devote more to the wages because the wages are definitely higher for the experienced people.

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