Hot Take from Your Japanese Senpai: Our Seniority System Is Quietly Killing Japan

So you want to live and work in Japan.

Maybe you've been dreaming about it since you first fell down the anime rabbit hole. Maybe you've already started studying Japanese, browsing job listings, imagining yourself commuting through Tokyo on a rainy morning with a hot canned coffee in hand.

I love that dream. And I want you to keep it.

But before you pack your bags, there's something I need to tell you — something most Japan content creators won't, because it's not aesthetic, it's not kawaii, and it doesn't make a good travel vlog.

It's the thing that made me want to leave a job I worked hard to get. And it's the thing that's quietly holding Japan back from the future it deserves.

The Real Reason Japan Pays So Little (It's Not What You Think)

If you've done any research on working in Japan, you've probably seen the surveys. The number one complaint from foreign workers living in Japan? Low wages.

And honestly? Japanese young workers feel the exact same way.

But here's what most people don't dig into: the low wages aren't random. They're a feature, not a bug, of a deeply embedded cultural system — one that was designed for a completely different era of Japan.

That system is nenkojoretsu: seniority-based pay and promotion, where your salary and career advancement are tied primarily to your age and how many years you've been at a company — not to what you actually contribute.

In practical terms? If you join a Japanese company fresh out of university, you're not getting a significant promotion until your mid-thirties. It doesn't matter how talented you are. It doesn't matter how much value you bring. You are young, therefore you wait.

How This System Even Exists: A Quick History

To understand why Japan built this, you have to understand what Japan used to be.

For decades, the implicit contract between Japanese companies and their employees was simple: you give us your entire career, we take care of you for life. People joined a company fresh out of school and retired from the same company forty years later. Lifetime employment (shūshin koyō, 終身雇用) wasn't just a perk — it was the expectation.

In that world, seniority-based pay made a certain kind of sense. You reward loyalty with stability. The company invests in you long-term, and you invest your life in the company.

But here's the crack in the system: Japanese labor law makes it extremely difficult to fire someone. And that one fact has a cascading effect that most people overlook.

Think about it this way: if you can't let someone go, you also become very cautious about raising their salary. Why? Because once you raise someone's pay, you can't take it back. Cut someone's salary and they'll either quit or quietly stop caring — and a disengaged employee you can't fire is worse than an underpaid one. So companies get stuck: they can't lower wages, they can't let people go, and the payroll just keeps accumulating dead weight.

The result? Companies learned to be extremely careful about raising salaries at all — especially for younger employees whose long-term contribution is still unproven. Start low, raise slowly, stay safe.

And those employees who'd long stopped contributing? They became what Japan calls madogiwashain (窓際社員) — literally "window-side employees." They sit near the windows, away from the action, neither contributing nor being let go. The company can't release them, so they just... stay. Collecting a paycheck that should be going to a 25-year-old who's actually driving results.

This is the world I entered when I got my first corporate job.

My Truth: What It Actually Felt Like From the Inside

I'm going to be honest with you, because that's the whole point of this column.

I worked at a company that ran on the classic nenkojoretsu system. And it was, genuinely, one of the most frustrating experiences of my professional life.

Here's the thing nobody prepares you for: you can finish all your work for the day and still not be allowed to go home. Not because there's more to do. Not because your boss needs help — because there was nothing I could actually do to help. But because your boss is still there, and leaving before your boss leaves is considered disrespectful.

So you sit. You wait. You watch the clock. You pretend to look busy.

The frustration built up over time. But what really broke something open in me was the moment I delivered a big result — something that genuinely moved the needle for the business. I was proud of it. I thought maybe, this time, it would be recognized.

My boss looked at me and said: "You're only 25. You're young. Keep working hard. I expect the same result next time."

That was it. No raise. No promotion. No real acknowledgment. Just: you're young, so you wait.

Was I angry? Absolutely. But here's the thing — I also knew that almost every company around me worked the same way. This wasn't one bad boss. This was the system.

That was the moment I made a decision: I needed to find a way to work with real autonomy. On my own terms. And eventually, I left.

This Will Probably Happen to You Too

Now here's where I need to look directly at you — yes, you, the person dreaming about a life in Japan.

If you come to Japan on a working visa, especially in your twenties, you will likely experience a version of this.

Maybe you came with strong language skills, a specific expertise, real passion for contributing. And you'll find yourself assigned to repetitive work that doesn't use any of it. Your colleagues might not speak enough English for real collaboration. Your manager might be cautious about giving you real responsibility — not because they dislike you, but because they're building trust, and that takes time in Japan.

But knowing that doesn't make it less frustrating when you're sitting there, underutilized, underpaid, wondering if this is really what you came all the way to Japan for.

The Good News: A New Japan Is Growing

Here's the part I really want you to hear, because I don't want to leave you with just the hard stuff.

Japan is changing. Slowly, imperfectly, but genuinely.

Every year, more startups and young entrepreneurs are reshaping what "working in Japan" can look like. These founders have global ambitions. They know they need to reach international markets. And they're actively looking for people like you — people who are multilingual, culturally fluent, and bring expertise Japan doesn't have enough of internally.

The aging society that's creating Japan's challenges is also creating real opportunities. Japanese companies increasingly need professionals who understand overseas marketing, who can do cross-cultural research, who can speak to global audiences. That's not a gap you have to apologize for — that's a competitive edge.

The right companies are out there. They're just not the loudest ones.

The System Is Cracking — Even at the Top

And if you need proof that the change is real, look at what's happening at the top of Japan Inc.

Major corporations — Hitachi, Fujitsu, NTT — have publicly announced moves away from seniority-based compensation toward performance and skills-based pay structures. These aren't fringe startups. These are the pillars of the Japanese economy.

The government itself is pushing companies toward job-based employment (jōbu-gata koyō, ジョブ型雇用), a model where people are hired and paid for specific roles and skills — not for their age or years of service.

And perhaps most telling: a 2023 survey found that only around 30% of new graduates said they wanted lifetime employment at a single company. The generation entering the workforce now is already thinking differently.

The system isn't dead yet. But the cracks are real.

My Senpai Take: We Have to Make This More Honest

Here's where I land on all of this.

I left the system. I built something of my own. And I'm not going back.

But I don't want to just escape quietly — because Japan will keep losing talented people if nothing changes. Young Japanese people with drive and ambition are increasingly leaving for other countries or building outside the system entirely. Foreign workers come in excited and leave disillusioned. And meanwhile, the madogiwashain collect their salaries while the people who are actually doing things feel invisible.

That's not sustainable. And I think more of us — both Japanese and international — need to say that out loud.

Before You Go: A Question for You

I've shared my world. Now I want to hear about yours.

How does your country handle this? Is it purely meritocratic — or does seniority quietly run things there too? Are you dealing with your own version of "you're too young, so wait your turn"?

Want more honest takes on what Japan is really like — the culture, the work life, the beautiful and the complicated? That's exactly what I talk about on my YouTube channel and in my community — real conversations about Japan, not just the highlight reel.