Japanese workers treasure automation; a ‘lifetime employment’ system means they don’t fear losing their jobs

It would be hard to find a culture that celebrates robots more than Japan, evident in the popularity of companion robots for consumers, sold by the Internet company SoftBank and Toyota Motor Corp, among others.

Japan, where birth rates have been sinking for decades and have raised fears of a labour shortage, forged a big push toward robotics starting in the 1990s. It leads the world in robots per 10,000 workers in the automobile sector — 1,562, compared with 1,091 in the U.S. and 1,133 in Germany, according to a White House report. Japan was also ahead in sectors outside automobiles at 219 robots per 10,000 workers, compared with 76 for the U.S. and 147 for Germany.

One factor in Japan’s different take on automation is the “lifetime employment” system. Major Japanese companies generally retain workers, even if their abilities become outdated, and retrain them for other tasks, said Koichi Iwamoto, a senior fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Although data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show digitalisation reduces demand for mid-level routine tasks such as running assembly lines, that trend has been less pronounced in Japan than in the U.S. The OECD data, which studied shifts from 2002 to 2014, showed employment trends remained almost unchanged for Japan.

That means companies in Japan weren’t resorting as aggressively as those in the U.S. to robots to replace humans.

A reflective stage

Still, automation has progressed in Japan to the extent the nation has now entered what Mr. Iwamoto called a “reflective stage,” in which “human harmony with machines” is being pursued, he said.

Kiyoshi Sakai, who has worked at Asahi Breweries, Japan’s top brewer, for 29 years, recalls how, in the past, can caps had to be placed into machines by hand, a repetitive task that was hard not just on the body, but also the mind. And so he is grateful for automation’s helping hand. Machines at the plant have become more than 50% smaller over the years. They are faster and more precise than three decades ago.

Like many workers in Japan, Mr. Sakai doesn’t seem worried about his job disappearing. As the need for plant workers nose-dived with the advance of automation, he was promoted to the general affairs section.

“I have no regrets. This is a stable job,” he says.