Big in Japan

Muy interesante columna de Guy Sorman sobre Japón, vale la pena:

Forget the hard working Japanese salary man: since the early 1990s, the Japanese have drastically reduced their rhythm. Tokyo University economist Fumio Hayashi has shown that the main reason behind Japan stagnation has been the decrease in the quantity of work. Since 1988, the government has led the way by closing public administrations on Saturday. The banks followed. From 1988 to 1993, the legal working time went down from 44 to 40 hours a week: a ten percent decline. This has been more than enough to bring the former Japanese « miracle » to its knees. The production technology and industrial productivity being the same in Japan, in Europe and in the United States, Japan has lost ground, in direct relation with its decrease in working hours. In the service sector, the downturn has been even worse while it is heavily regulated and partially closed to foreign competition. In the retail business, which employs a lot of unskilled workers – the so called « pop and mom » shops - , the productivity in Japan is now inferior by 25% compared to Western Europe.