Re: [tlug] [OT] A Question About Degrees

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Attila Kinali writes:

 > The outcome is now, that the starting dates differ more than before.
 > Although we have know only two types of degrees (BSc and MSc), those
 > are even less comparable among universities, because nobody knows how
 > they mapped their diploma degrees to those (no, it is not even uniform
 > within a country).

Sounds messy.  Still, I don't think it has anything like the impact
that secular changes in the structure of the European economy have.

 > Hence i dont think that those who cannot atain a higher education
 > are fucked.

That is not what I said.  What I said is that those who don't get jobs
(corresponding to their educational level) are fucked.  What I have
been told by French and Spanish labor economists is that those who do
not succeed in getting jobs have no alternative but to go to graduate
school or be unemployed (but I repeat myself :-) or work at MacDonald's
(which is arguably somewhat useful to society, but doesn't pay anywhere
near as well as software engineering or architecture).

In the U.S. and to some extent in Japan, there are options such as
contract work.  Much less job security, less to no fringe benefits,
but the direct compensation is comparable (and sometimes substantially
higher), and you get experience relevant to permanent positions in
your field.

Japan does have a lot of such friction, more on the side of new
graduates (who have a fourth option sometimes taken: suicide) than on
the side of companies which quite happily (until recently when they
started getting seriously bashed for it) used contract workers.  But I
can't see it as a solution to introduce more European-style rules to
create further barriers to hiring here.  And, apropos the OP, the
restrictions (both formal and informal) on contract work apply less to
gaijin than they do to Japanese, creating an opportunity for
foreigners (those who think they can hustle well enough to deal with
the job insecurity).