Changing Japan's Recruiting Norms and Toyota's Autonomous Transportation Test

Japan's Business Chiefs to Scrap Recruiting Guideline

Japanese corporations have been bastions of innovation, but over the last decade they have been overshadowed by rising tigers in South Korea and China and explosive growth in the US’ Silicon Valley. The accelerating demographic challenges and resulting labor shortages does not bode well if Japan wants to regain the top spot it held strongly in the 80’s.

In a more globalized world, this means that Japanese companies need to become more competitive in the global market for attracting talent. Without the best talent (either developed in Japan or elsewhere) Japanese companies won’t be able to effectively challenge their new competitors.

The news that the recruiting precedents in Japan are planning to be shifted caught my eye. I’ve always found the life employment a practice that restricted both individuals and corporations. For the individual it is difficult to follow what you are passionate about and work on work that gets you excited and working hard. For companies they are so focused on growing talent internally that they won’t be agile enough to start new projects and hire the necessary outside talent to get those projects moving. While there are many positives to this practice, with regards to life stability, in a more and more competitive global economic landscape these traditions seem to hold back Japan more than it benefits them.

One student reacted to this news negatively because it would make the recruiting process more complicated and less focused on generalized skill. I don’t see this criticism as being very valid because Japanese college students should during their years in college strive to discover what excites them and identify the companies or opportunities that will help them work in those areas. Rather than depending on a big name company accepting you and following their instructions (almost as if a company is just another admission in the school elevator process), individuals should take more control over their career. I believe that if individuals are able to dream big, companies and economic results will equivalently achieve at that level.

Toyota partnership to Pilot Autonomous Vehicle Transportation System

Toyota’s plans to lunch a full fledge AV transportation system shows the promise that autonomous driving brings beyond allowing individuals to buy these cars. With AVs Toyota has clearly recognized that individual ownership of a car isn’t so much necessary. Uber and other ride sharing apps and cities with great public transit already show that if transportation is easily and affordably accessible in another way, then people won’t buy cars.

What is really exciting about these AV tests planned by Toyota is that they aren’t working on just training the AI for the cars, they are also testing how people will interact with such systems. What will the “public transit” of the future look like with AVs. With one-person mini cars picking people up from their door and taking them to bus stops for AV busses, we can begin to imagine how AVs can improve upon the existing transportation infrastructure.

The value of transportation is also discussed in this article. Transportation isn’t just a way to get from point A to point B, it is the means by which we connect with others and the community around us. If someone has no affordable or effective way to get out of their neighborhood, then their “world” is restricted to that area. The promise of AVs as more cost effective, efficient, and safe transportation replacement means they can bring the transportation and the community it brings with it to more and more people. In Japan this will be the elderly in rural areas, while in other parts of the world it could help alleviate an assortment of other issues, such as congestion or real-estate price booms.

While they are starting small, this Toyota test is unique from the AV tests in the United States by Google, GM, and others because it is trying to test an ecosystem for transportation and the others are limited to just solving the technical problem of self-driving cars.