The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Productivity Not Immigration   During the “bubble years” of surging economic growth, Japan could not keep up with the supply of workers for the 3K jobs – kitsui, kitanai, kiken or difficult, dirty, dangerous undertakings. The 1985 Plaza Accord released a genie out of the bottle in the form of a very strong yen, which made everything, everywhere seems dirt cheap. Japanese people traveled abroad as tourists in mass numbers for the first time. They often created havoc in international destinations, because they were so gauche – a bit like we are experiencing now with mass Chinese tourism. Companies bought up foreign companies and real estate at a rapid clip. French champagne and beluga caviar was being downed at a an alarming pace.   Finding Japanese workers became difficult, so the Japanese government turned to immigration. We had a very special immigration however. Countries with oil like Iran were allowed to send their citizens to Japan without requiring visas and suddenly we had an influx of Iranians, a bit