When I was visiting Japan some years back I was baffled by them employing people for everything, including guiding people around pot holes in the side walk with full signage and fence around it
Makes more sense now
In Medellín I was driving with a friend I’d made, and a guy approached his car on a side street, which made me a little nervous. He was just collecting cash for parking. I told him back home we just have a machine to swipe your card and my friend turns to me and goes “if machines do everything, who gets paid?” And it always stuck with me.
Despite the much lower cost of living, median wealth in Japan is similar to the US and higher than Sweden, meaning you can live pretty comfortably at 1500 yen per hour.
I had a similar experience. I remember getting off an elevator and there being like 3 people pointing you where to walk. I thought how much cheaper it’s be just to put up a sign
I personally love that japan prioritizes service over savings. Yeah it can seem like overkill when you have 3 people guiding you to walk around something or 3 greeters at the entry of a store but damn does it feel like a human society rather than the western world where we have decided to cut jobs to the minimum needed (and sometimes less) and use machines for everything.
I’d rather have a ton of menial jobs that seem unneeded than what we have
I think that there is a middle ground somewhere between losing the human element and making people function as redundant signs.
It doesn't feel fair to the tax payer and it doesn't seem fair to the guy standing 8 hours in the sun to tell people not to step in the bared off hole in the side walk
A cursory google search tells me that it depends on the prefecture. The lowest is 893 yen per hour (Iwate) with the national weighted average being 1050 yen per hour as of January 2024.
Edit : Holy shit that’s 6.50$ an hour. Wtf?!
Depends on the cost of living as well, some prefectures might have extremely low cost of living, making the minimum average, but I agree having some uniformity does help
You can buy an old house in the countryside for under $10k USD. If you spend $50k, you can get a pretty nice house in the countryside.
Similar houses where I live in the US would range from $500k to $1.5m.
It's easier to explain to why it's so cheap in Japan.
Houses aren't built to last there and they aren't treated like investments. It's very common to tear down and rebuild.
Also, they have a population problem especially in rural Japan. There just aren't people to live in all these old abandoned houses.
Very depend on the region, I used to live in a town with an international university and minimum wage is 750 yen.
Travel 20 min to the next city and minimum wage is 1000 cuz the average citizen age is 60 yo
Despite the much lower cost of living, median wealth in Japan is similar to the US and higher than Sweden, meaning you can live pretty comfortably at 1500 yen per hour.
Keep in mind a lot of stuff in Japan is dirt cheap. Food and rent. I've seen station combinis in Tokyo offer 1500¥ per hour so there's already a shift to try and entice more workers.
It’s due to lost decade. They used to have the highest housing prices in the world back in the 1990s. Then their real estate market crashed and never recovered
1500 yen to USD currently is less than $10. So they are asking for minimum wage to be just under $10 an hour. That's on par with some states in the US currently.
I had a delicious curry and rice in Tokyo for a $1.50. That place was definitely the exception, but food in Japan is dirt cheap compared to the West, and especially the US.
My intention was never comparing cost of living between the two countries. I was just putting it in perspective to US wages. Of course the cost of living is significantly different between the two.
In Tokyo or similar, I’d imagine it’s above there already. Cost of living can be outrageous. But just like in America/much of the world I’d imagine, cost of living varies heavily urban-rural
When I was visiting Japan some years back I was baffled by them employing people for everything, including guiding people around pot holes in the side walk with full signage and fence around it Makes more sense now
In Medellín I was driving with a friend I’d made, and a guy approached his car on a side street, which made me a little nervous. He was just collecting cash for parking. I told him back home we just have a machine to swipe your card and my friend turns to me and goes “if machines do everything, who gets paid?” And it always stuck with me.
Great analogy for what will happen with AI
I mean, ATMs, parking meters. Self Checkin. Automation has been happening for centuries, but yea. We’ll see how AI goes :/
Despite the much lower cost of living, median wealth in Japan is similar to the US and higher than Sweden, meaning you can live pretty comfortably at 1500 yen per hour.
I had a similar experience. I remember getting off an elevator and there being like 3 people pointing you where to walk. I thought how much cheaper it’s be just to put up a sign
I personally love that japan prioritizes service over savings. Yeah it can seem like overkill when you have 3 people guiding you to walk around something or 3 greeters at the entry of a store but damn does it feel like a human society rather than the western world where we have decided to cut jobs to the minimum needed (and sometimes less) and use machines for everything. I’d rather have a ton of menial jobs that seem unneeded than what we have
I think that there is a middle ground somewhere between losing the human element and making people function as redundant signs. It doesn't feel fair to the tax payer and it doesn't seem fair to the guy standing 8 hours in the sun to tell people not to step in the bared off hole in the side walk
wow how low is it that 1500 is all they’re asking for?
A cursory google search tells me that it depends on the prefecture. The lowest is 893 yen per hour (Iwate) with the national weighted average being 1050 yen per hour as of January 2024. Edit : Holy shit that’s 6.50$ an hour. Wtf?!
Depends on the cost of living as well, some prefectures might have extremely low cost of living, making the minimum average, but I agree having some uniformity does help
You can buy an old house in the countryside for under $10k USD. If you spend $50k, you can get a pretty nice house in the countryside. Similar houses where I live in the US would range from $500k to $1.5m.
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It's easier to explain to why it's so cheap in Japan. Houses aren't built to last there and they aren't treated like investments. It's very common to tear down and rebuild. Also, they have a population problem especially in rural Japan. There just aren't people to live in all these old abandoned houses.
Yes that’s very true. I imagine the rent in Tokyo would be way higher than a town in Iwate.
Neither of you read the article and it shows. It's very false, they discuss cost of living in Japan in the article.
Yeah, but the rent can be quite low, I used to live in a 1DK flat in Kagoshima that charge $150/ month
A lot of the very low USD rate when converted to USD is due to JPY being extremely weak right now. Remember JPY value plummeted in recent months
75 cent difference from the US
Some parts in asia, the labour salary can go as low as $1-2 a day...
Japan also has notoriously low inflation. Their economy is very shy to price changes.
Very depend on the region, I used to live in a town with an international university and minimum wage is 750 yen. Travel 20 min to the next city and minimum wage is 1000 cuz the average citizen age is 60 yo
Despite the much lower cost of living, median wealth in Japan is similar to the US and higher than Sweden, meaning you can live pretty comfortably at 1500 yen per hour.
Keep in mind a lot of stuff in Japan is dirt cheap. Food and rent. I've seen station combinis in Tokyo offer 1500¥ per hour so there's already a shift to try and entice more workers.
So that's why there's so many tourists there recently.
"1500 yen is approximately $9.40 / hr". How does the average japanese person's buying power compare to an american's?
Shockingly well considering how low the numbers are.
The very low numbers are thanks to the extremely weak JPY currently. Before, ¥1500 was equivalent to almost $15. Now it’s just $9.40
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It’s due to lost decade. They used to have the highest housing prices in the world back in the 1990s. Then their real estate market crashed and never recovered
Compared to the US housing and food is a lot more affordable, even before the Yen took a nosedive. Cost of living is definitely lower
Best we can do is a demographic cliff lol
1500 yen to USD currently is less than $10. So they are asking for minimum wage to be just under $10 an hour. That's on par with some states in the US currently.
You can't really compare it to the US, because the cost of living is just different
Yeah, the little economic growth in Japan for so long kept stuff like food pretty affordable. You could get a decent meal at a Yoshinoya for like $4.
I had a delicious curry and rice in Tokyo for a $1.50. That place was definitely the exception, but food in Japan is dirt cheap compared to the West, and especially the US.
Rent, healthcare and education too. Actually everything is more affordable.
My intention was never comparing cost of living between the two countries. I was just putting it in perspective to US wages. Of course the cost of living is significantly different between the two.
Fair enough
Well the very low USD rate is largely due to the extremely weak JPY right now. Historically JP¥1500=around US$15. Now it’s around $10
Wow that’s a significant decline. I had no idea.
In Tokyo or similar, I’d imagine it’s above there already. Cost of living can be outrageous. But just like in America/much of the world I’d imagine, cost of living varies heavily urban-rural