Ask HN: Why hasn't there been more outsourcing of tech jobs to Japan?
All I mostly see is outsourcing to India or insourcing of India via H1B. Google seems to give some fairly low numbers ($57,604 year) on average salary for programmers in Japan.
47 comments
In addition to the valid reasons mentioned by others here—English ability, labor shortage in Japan, less of a hacker culture, etc.—there is also a difference in attitudes and expectations about employment. Many young Japanese prefer to work as full-time company employees, both for the stability and for the social status. My younger daughter graduated from a Japanese university twelve years ago and has been working as a systems engineer for an IT company in Tokyo ever since. She told me recently that, of the thirty-five people hired at the same time as her, only three or four have left the company. My daughter expects to work there for the rest of her career.
Freelancers here are more likely to prefer working for clients in Japan, too, as there is less hassle about payments and clients may be more reliable. I freelanced as a translator for twenty years in Japan, and over thousands of jobs from dozens of clients I had trouble getting paid only once. In contrast, complaints about nonpaying clients were a constant refrain among translators I knew in the U.S.
That said, in my semiretirement I recently started doing a little consulting work for an IT company in the U.S. Once we got through all the hassle of identity checks and bank transfers, I have been very impressed by the speed and smoothness of their payment system.
Freelancers here are more likely to prefer working for clients in Japan, too, as there is less hassle about payments and clients may be more reliable. I freelanced as a translator for twenty years in Japan, and over thousands of jobs from dozens of clients I had trouble getting paid only once. In contrast, complaints about nonpaying clients were a constant refrain among translators I knew in the U.S.
That said, in my semiretirement I recently started doing a little consulting work for an IT company in the U.S. Once we got through all the hassle of identity checks and bank transfers, I have been very impressed by the speed and smoothness of their payment system.
India has more than ten times the population of Japan, so all other things being equal you'd expect there to be ten times as many Indian devs than Japanese devs. And all other thing are not equal, and there are probably several factors that skew things even more (English skills, cultural reasons, economical reasons).
In India 31% of the population uses the Internet. Only 3-5% of India’s population is considered to be formally skilled. The statistics are so grim with indoor sanitation I feel like it’s inappropriate to even mention. India is an incredibly hard place to be a skilled worker and not at all comparable to Japan
Where is that statistic from that only 31% use the internet?
As in many countries that are similar, they may now have a laptop/pc but will often have a cheap android phone.
As in many countries that are similar, they may now have a laptop/pc but will often have a cheap android phone.
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The consensus at the very large IT provider I work for, amongst the staff, is that India is a good bet for a script running operations team, but poor on ingenuity, innovation, and creative problem solving. The best Indian talent are as good as anyone, but the average talent level is far lower than American, Asian or European.
It’s all about what you pay and how you hire.
I worked on a team that had a bunch of folks from India who had been escalation engineers for big software companies. They were awesome—- at restoring services. Terrible at building or sustaining. Probably because they were trained well at troubleshooting and repair.
Another team I was on probably consisted of the smartest people I’ve ever met, period. All Indian, but from a pure university edu path and never worked in a big outsourcing shop.
At the end, people are people.
I worked on a team that had a bunch of folks from India who had been escalation engineers for big software companies. They were awesome—- at restoring services. Terrible at building or sustaining. Probably because they were trained well at troubleshooting and repair.
Another team I was on probably consisted of the smartest people I’ve ever met, period. All Indian, but from a pure university edu path and never worked in a big outsourcing shop.
At the end, people are people.
Top talent seems to also be born, not made. So if you know how to search (probably IIT), you can get some of the best people in the world.
Likely China is also able to make use of their numbers, but they're able to keep much of their talent internal. Or it goes through proxies like Singapore, HK, Taiwan.
Corollary: Countries with really good education probably isn't as cost effective as well. Maybe it is for higher end stuff like ML or operating systems, but the filter for a React programmer is entirely different.
Likely China is also able to make use of their numbers, but they're able to keep much of their talent internal. Or it goes through proxies like Singapore, HK, Taiwan.
Corollary: Countries with really good education probably isn't as cost effective as well. Maybe it is for higher end stuff like ML or operating systems, but the filter for a React programmer is entirely different.
It's important to consider that while India has a vast population, the challenges in infrastructure, education, and access to technology create significant hurdles.
Part of it is programmers aren't sexy in Japan like they are in the USA. There is not much of a "hacker culture" in Japan. Programming is just a means to an end in business or technical work, so it's done either by engineers, scientists, and business people as part of their other work, or by staff programmers servicing other business needs -- almost a form of clerical work. It's not a good place to find people who dedicate themselves to programming as a craft in its own right. There are pockets of hobbyists and otaku, but the work culture there doesn't really support that kind of dedication to programming as a calling the way it does in for example the USA, UK, and elsewhere.
Probably the notion of a 10x engineer doesn't carry well across some cultures. In some, it's considered that it takes a village to build a hero.
Japan has a strong craftsmanship culture, so I'd expect them to have engineers that do really well too. But from what I hear from friends who worked there, they work late hours, sleep late, wake late, come in late, and it's pretty much the effectiveness of a 9-5 culture.
Japan has a strong craftsmanship culture, so I'd expect them to have engineers that do really well too. But from what I hear from friends who worked there, they work late hours, sleep late, wake late, come in late, and it's pretty much the effectiveness of a 9-5 culture.
A lot of the recent “cheapness” of Japan is due to the drastic drop in value of the yen. Two years ago these workers would cost like 50% more.
Japan also has better worker protections, so hiring and firing is more difficult I imagine than India. One way I’ve heard American firms fire is to force employees to relocate to another Asia office with more lax protections. The employee gets relocation costs covered but if they get fired within a year they have to pay those expenses back. The employee knows they’re just going to get fired so they quit.
On top of that, English is probably not as good. It’s taught in schools but you don’t need it for most jobs.
Japan also has better worker protections, so hiring and firing is more difficult I imagine than India. One way I’ve heard American firms fire is to force employees to relocate to another Asia office with more lax protections. The employee gets relocation costs covered but if they get fired within a year they have to pay those expenses back. The employee knows they’re just going to get fired so they quit.
On top of that, English is probably not as good. It’s taught in schools but you don’t need it for most jobs.
> One way I’ve heard American firms fire is to force employees to relocate to another Asia office with more lax protections.
I find it hard to believe the American firms can "force" employees in Japan to relocate to another country. They can insist, but that's it.
I find it hard to believe the American firms can "force" employees in Japan to relocate to another country. They can insist, but that's it.
By ‘force’ I think they mean ‘fire them if they refuse to relocate’
Indians speak English. Japanese in general do not.
There is also a massive culture gap between Japan and the rest of the world. It's hard to explain if you haven't lived there.
There is also a massive culture gap between Japan and the rest of the world. It's hard to explain if you haven't lived there.
Does this imply there's a massive opportunity for Japan to encourage learning English to attract business, or are the economics not aligned?
Unless you speak Japanese, you are interacting with a small minority of people that care about interacting with people outside of Japan. Most people living there think it's great to fine, but still better than other countries and especially their neighbors.
The best analogy I can think of is asking a non passport holding American why don't they learn Japanese to attract business from one of the largest economies in the world.
The best analogy I can think of is asking a non passport holding American why don't they learn Japanese to attract business from one of the largest economies in the world.
Go back 30–40 years and the proposition of an American learning Japanese probably sounds a lot less ridiculous.
But Americans still didn’t learn Japanese en mass when it looked like Japanese manufacturing was going to conquer the world. Just like they didn’t learn Chinese.
Learning a new language as an adult is incredibly difficult. I have learned Spanish to a basic conversational level and it has been a massive struggle for me.
My Swiss and German friends seem to pick up new languages super easily though. Likely this is because they learned a second, third, or even fourth language as children.
So, not impossible but it is good to acknowledged that this isn’t an easy thing to do and likely would be a generational shift kind of thing.
Learning a new language as an adult is incredibly difficult. I have learned Spanish to a basic conversational level and it has been a massive struggle for me.
My Swiss and German friends seem to pick up new languages super easily though. Likely this is because they learned a second, third, or even fourth language as children.
So, not impossible but it is good to acknowledged that this isn’t an easy thing to do and likely would be a generational shift kind of thing.
American's stubborn insistence on only knowing one language aside, my point is that learning Japanese would've been reasonable perhaps even en vogue.
Japanese is a relatively difficult language to learn.
They have a very advanced and large economy (fourth in the world by size). Their problem is labor shortage, due to being one of the oldest nation in the world. They've already outsourced a ton of work, because there just isn't enough working age people in Japan to do all the work of their export-centered economy. If anything, they need to attract workforce (immigrants), not more businesses.
They all learn English. But they will usually avoid speaking it if possible.
Interestingly, Japanese "learn" English in high school.
Most of them can read and write it passably, but can't speak it confidently and as per culture, if they can't do it perfectly they don't want to do it at all.
I'm not sure they need that kind of business.
Most of them can read and write it passably, but can't speak it confidently and as per culture, if they can't do it perfectly they don't want to do it at all.
I'm not sure they need that kind of business.
Do they even need to “attract business” there? Seems to me that as a developed country they have plenty of business of their own. And there are subsidiaries of western companies there. Yahoo is pretty big, and Google has a large office in Roppongi Hills.
You mean in Shibuya? Because the Roppongi office (the older of the two) has been much smaller, and iirc it got closed permanently very recently.
They have Apple, Google, Goldman Sachs, Rakuten, and others. They have a very large economy of their own.
I don’t think Yahoo Japan is a subsidiary anymore.
It's normal to take English courses there. They struggle to get people fluent though.
It's just not a great investment option. ~1k hours of English is mandatory in Japanese K-12 education, and that takes one from nothing to at best infantile two-word sentences. People says usability from there takes another 1.5k, 3k, 10k hour rules apply, etc. All that to be an average immigrant tech worker rarely make sense.
57604 Average Salary is still pretty high. For a little bit more, you could probably outsource to parts of Europe and deal with less cultural/TZ/language barrier issues.
Indian Devs are paid around 7-25k USD depending on various factors, so India is significantly cheaper.
Indian Devs are paid around 7-25k USD depending on various factors, so India is significantly cheaper.
Japan don't even have enough tech workers for themselves and need outsourcing...
Because they have better options than working for US companies as second class citizens.
Singaporeans speak English, with world class education system. Hey don’t they want H1B? Because they have better options at home. Any expats will tell you lives are better in Singapore and Japan than in India.
Singaporeans speak English, with world class education system. Hey don’t they want H1B? Because they have better options at home. Any expats will tell you lives are better in Singapore and Japan than in India.
also what's great about singapore is the penal system
illegal immigration (more than a week or so) is a literal harsh beating and explusion
drug use is death
most "big crimes" are death
littering is being forced to clean litter
imagine if we had those in the US! we'd not be able to hire enough executioners and prisoner beaters. That, or sharia law, as we'll see taking hold in europe in about 10-20 years.
Occams razor says Indians are better software engineers than most cultures (except americans) because of our free thinking cultural values. I cannot imagine an average Japanese engineer being able to pick up new tools every month. I have worked from people from a lot of cultures to understand this. For instance right now Indian engineers are embracing AI tools much faster.
One of the things that I value highly in my team members is the ability to admit when they don’t know something. In India, I’ve found that people don’t like to admit that they don’t know something. Even in everyday situations like asking for directions when walking in Delhi, you are more likely to get a wrong answer than someone saying they don’t know. I have not figured out how to with that on software dev teams.
Yeah I agree this is a major issue with Indians mostly because knowledge is considered as status. I think if done in a non direct tactful way most Indians will admit they are wrong. (Maybe less so to a foreigner) I think the right way to counter this is using LLMs
I spoke about this with some Indian colleagues I’ve worked with in the US. They said the same thing as you. Supposedly it’s super obvious when someone does not know something and is bluffing to save face. I haven’t learned to recognize this.
Anyone who has ever worked with Indian development teams knows that this is largely untrue. Unless your definition of “better” is different than most.
Well you can trust the data or your personal experience
There’s plenty of data to support my personal experience.
Isnt the premise of the whole post that the data shows this