Washington Post Invents a Japanese "Demographic Calamity"

[Hannah Bell]

The Washington Post is very unhappy with Japan's government, which it complains (in a "news" story) "has all but ignored an impending demographic calamity." The calamity is a rising ratio of retirees to working age people.

The "calamity" in this story should be an intense labor shortage. That is not consistent with the relatively high (for Japan) unemployment rate that the country has experienced in recent years. Furthermore, it is not clear that a labor shortage is a "calamity" for the bulk of the country. Typically, a labor shortage would lead to a bidding up of wages. The least productive jobs, for example, the late shifts in convenience stores or parking valets, would go unfilled.

The Post however assures us that Japan faces a calamity because of "a growing clamor from business groups that predict ruinous decline because of a lack of workers. " Post reporters have apparently not be told about corporate lobbyists who sometimes exaggerate to advance their employers' interests.

--Dean Baker





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