Re: [tlug] Looking for Summer Internship in Japan

[Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com>]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Nicolas Limare
<nicolas+tlug@example.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
>> besides Stephen's point about how good the Japanese economy (and
>> maybe North America's and Europe's?) was back then, the world
>> population has grown a lot worldwide [...] there's just more people
>> looking for work.  More competition means lower wages and longer
>> hours.  If a Japanese employer doesn't look at an overseas
>> workforce, then the company will risk get swallowed up by another
>> company.
>
> That can't be the only explanation. Why would Japan IT be doomed to be
> reduced to stupid/boring/cheap jobs and outsourced to digital sweat
> shops while US IT still dominates the tech world with innovation and
> money? I don't have the feeling that Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple,
> Microsoft have given up being industry leaders and recruiting talented
> people for interesting and well paid jobs, so there must be a way in
> Japan too.


Yes, you're right -- that isn't the only explanation, but in between
Japan and USA are many other places that are feeling what many of you
are seeing in Japan.  And maybe even worse -- at least Japan had a
"head start" in terms of IT.


> The population/competition thing is probably true for low
> qualification jobs, such as the usual PHP and Java stuff where one is
> only asked to be able to read and write in the company chosen
> language; these are the assembly line workers of the IT factory. But
> the factory also needs inventors and designers and I don't see an
> excess supply of skilled polyglot programmers with a solid computing
> culture and some keen interest in software performance and
> quality. The one from Knuth, not the one from the Gang of Four.


Sure.  Maybe I'm being a bit simplistic but hopefully not too much so
by saying this.  Suppose you have a certain number of IT companies
when there are X number of people.  If the population doubles then
maybe the number of IT people doubles as well?  Then, are the number
of IT companies such as Microsoft and Apple going to double?  One
might argue yes, because the number of consumers (users) doubles as
well...but I don't think so.  I mean,  I hope I'm wrong, but I think
Microsoft and Apple can supply to more customers fine without having
further competitors out there!

I think this issue has just been hidden from many of us because a lot
of Chinese, Indian, etc.-based companies previously wrote software
that didn't compete outside of their respective countries.  Now, not
only are their students seeking IT degrees overseas, but their
companies are making software that is competitive.  And seeking
contracts with USA, Japanese, etc. companies as vendors.

I'm not in the Japanese IT industry, so yes, maybe there is something
inherently wrong with it.  But something similar is happening
elsewhere so some of the factors cannot be specific to just Japan.

Ray