Japan's job-change rate moved two points in thirty years
Executives arriving in Japan hear two things about hiring. First, Japanese people don't change jobs. Second, from recent headlines, Japanese people have started changing jobs.
Both are half right. I lined up the government numbers from 1990. Things have moved, but very little, and the people moving are not the ones foreign companies want.
Ten million want to move. Three million do.
In 2024, 10 million employed people in Japan said they wanted to change jobs. 3.31 million actually did. One in three.
Recruit Works Institute followed the same individuals over time. Of those who said they wanted to change jobs, 87% were still at the same company a year later. Among regular employees, only 8.4% had moved.
So yes, more Japanese want to change jobs, two million more than a decade ago. But the step between wanting and doing hasn't shrunk in thirty years.
Fig.1Quarterly, 2018 to 2023: people who want to change jobs (top) and people who did (bottom). The top line climbs; the bottom line barely moves. Unit: 10,000 persons.
Men: 3.0% to 3.8%
The job-change rate is the share of employed people who changed jobs that year. Japan has a continuous series from 1990.
Men: 3.0% in 1990, 4.1% in 2000, a peak of 4.6% in 2007, 3.8% in 2022. Women: 4.1% in 1990, 6.6% in 2007, 5.4% in 2022.
Thirty years. Under one point for men, a bit over one for women. The record year was 2019 at 3.53 million job changers; the pandemic pushed it down, and 2024's 3.31 million still hasn't recovered.
Show this chart to an American and they'll assume the data is wrong.
Fig.2Job-change rate, 1990 to 2022. Men have oscillated between 3% and 4.6% for thirty years. February special survey through 2001, annual average from 2002.
Who moves: the young and women
Split by age and the story changes.
Men aged 15 to 24: 7.5% in 1990, roughly 10 to 13% since 2002. Aged 25 to 34: 4 to 6%. Aged 35 to 44: 2.2 to 3.7%. Aged 45 to 54: from 1.5% to 2.5% over thirty years, never above 2.6%.
A 45-year-old Japanese man has a one-in-forty chance of changing jobs this year. In 1990 it was one in sixty. That is the entire change.
And this is exactly the person foreign companies want for their Japan entity: mid-forties, fifteen years at a large company, has run a team, has customers. The least mobile group in the country.
Fig.3Men's job-change rate by age. The young swing above 10%; the 45 to 54 line hugs 2% for three decades.
What this means for hiring
First, if your hiring plan assumes "Japanese people change jobs now," it will miss. The people moving are in their twenties, and women. Men over 35 behave much like their fathers did.
Second, mid-career people can be hired, but they won't come to you. A 2.5% rate means two or three in a hundred will move this year. They don't apply. You have to find those two or three first and look at them one by one. I call this scouting, and for any role I start with scouting before anything else. That's what A talent map is not a list is about.
Third, once someone has changed jobs in Japan, the second time is easier. My own experience is blunt: people who have moved once are easy to approach, people who never have are nearly impossible. So when scouting, the first thing I check on a resume is whether that one move is there.
Where I'm not sure
The rate measures last year's behavior, not intent. The data runs to 2024, and the 2023 and 2024 spring wage rounds were the largest in thirty years (see Japan's wages since 1945). Whether a widening pay gap moves the mid-career group is something to watch for two more years.
Also, the statistics don't separate Japanese nationals from foreign residents. Foreign workers almost certainly change jobs far more often, but the published data doesn't split them out.
The forty-somethings in your Japan entity: did they apply, or were they found?
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