Employment prospects for Japanese majors

The future of Japanese majors: there is a lot to look forward to.

With the in-depth development of Sino-Japanese economic and trade cooperation, Japanese pop culture has become increasingly popular in China, and Japanese has become an enduringly popular minor language major in colleges and universities in recent years. However, a large number of Japanese language major graduates enter the market every year, coupled with the impact of booming machine translation and speech recognition technology on the job market, the employment situation of Japanese language majors is still grim and not optimistic. Is it due to changes in the times, or is it that Japanese language education in Chinese universities has not cultivated talents that meet social needs? Faced with this situation, what can major Japanese language departments and Japanese teachers do? Teruyuki Kubo, associate professor at the School of Oriental Languages ??and Cultures at Zhejiang Gongshang University, made the following suggestions in the article, which are worth thinking about.

As Sino-Japanese relations are improving, at the end of 2018, teachers and students majoring in Japanese in universities felt somewhat relieved. However, the employment situation for Japanese majors is still grim and not optimistic. The reason is that many of the problems faced by the Japanese major are not caused by the tense relations between China and Japan. The improvement of Sino-Japanese relations does not mean that all problems can be solved. As the saying goes, "Be prepared for danger in times of peace." I would like to briefly describe the serious issues facing the Japanese language major, and I would like to ask for your corrections.

When I worked at a university in China a few years ago, one of my tasks was to prepare for the establishment of a Japanese major. At that time, I wanted to draw on the experience and wisdom of my predecessors as much as possible to create a higher-quality professional department. To this end, I conducted an investigation on the current situation of Japanese majors in China, focusing on universities in coastal cities in China, and asked teachers and students for their opinions and ideas. Through this inspection, I found that the situation is more severe than I imagined - there is a surplus of Japanese language majors, students have difficulty finding jobs, the resulting decrease in the number of students actively applying for Japanese language majors, students' low desire to learn, etc. Even if you are proficient in Japanese, you can't find a way out in the future. So, is it necessary to work hard to learn Japanese? Machine translation and speech recognition technology are developing rapidly. "Unless your Japanese proficiency is extremely high, it will be replaced by machines." After students feel this, they are confused as to whether they should study hard to improve their Japanese skills or give up and find another way out.

Some Japanese teachers are actively committed to improving students' desire to learn so that students can learn happily and efficiently. While this kind of effort is important, it's not what many students want. We still inevitably have some doubts about the future of education.

Difficulty in employment is an important problem faced by Japanese majors. The "difficulty in employment" mentioned here does not mean that you cannot find a job, but a problem with wages and other benefits. Specifically, the salary of other positions is higher than that of Japanese translator, which values ??Japanese language ability, and it is also a very real problem that there is no promotion space for Japanese translator positions. Taking an inland provincial capital city as an example, the salary of fresh graduates for ordinary positions is about 5,000 yuan, while for Japanese translator positions it is about 3,500 yuan. Under such conditions, only students who insist on applying for Japanese language-related positions or students from junior colleges will stay. A large number of Japanese language professionals enter the market every year, but there is not much demand. In this way, even if the salary is only 3,500 yuan, there will never be a shortage of people to apply for jobs, and the company will not need to pay a salary of 5,000 yuan.

As far as I know, employees of Japanese companies in China also understand that the remuneration for Japanese language majors is not ideal, especially in the manufacturing industry, which needs to consider cutting costs. However, China's prices have been rising year after year, making the manufacturing industry miserable. . Two years ago, a manufacturing supplier revealed, "It is now more cost-effective to produce in Japan. However, the project is outsourced, and it is impossible to just transfer our own factory." In fact, some clothing that is easy to transfer The manufacturing industry has already moved its production lines to Southeast Asia and South Asia; and for more complex manufacturing industries such as automobiles that involve material procurement and parts manufacturing, it is not easy to move overseas. If the outsourced factory moves its production line to Southeast Asia, the parts it produces will have to pass customs inspection every time, making it difficult to determine the delivery date and unable to respond to emergencies. Therefore, the production lines of these enterprises first choose to move from coastal areas to inland. As China's high-speed rail and other infrastructure are improving day by day, local governments are also actively recruiting investment. In fact, a large number of factories have poured into Hubei, Hunan and other places. Airlines such as low-cost carriers (LCCs) have also launched direct routes to Japan from these inland cities, accelerating this shift. However, it is difficult to say whether these factors can stimulate corporate demand for Japanese language talents.

So far, it is a common practice for Japanese companies in China to dispatch employees from Japan to undertake management and leadership tasks. In addition to high labor costs such as basic salary and allowances for these dispatched employees, they also need to be equipped with translators. In addition, it takes time for expatriate employees to adapt to the unfamiliar environment in a foreign country, and it is impossible to be comfortable immediately as soon as they take up the job. Therefore, it is more efficient to train Chinese employees in the Japanese headquarters and then send them to work in China. Although Japanese companies do not no longer need Japanese talents responsible for contacting the headquarters, the fact that Japanese companies no longer need Japanese translators actually means that the demand for Japanese is reduced. Many Japanese companies are already trying to reduce the number of Japanese employees working in China.

At the same time, Japanese companies have recently begun sending Japanese employees who can speak Chinese to work in China. At a well-known Japanese retail company, Japanese employees not only give instructions directly to Chinese employees in Chinese, but also directly enter the checkout counter to guide customers and assist with checkout when the checkout counter is busy. Japanese companies are making these efforts to achieve localization.

I would like to add that the salary of Japanese translators in Shanghai, Shenzhen and other places can occasionally reach more than 7,000 yuan, but in these cities, 7,000 yuan is also a relatively low level. Some people have gone to Shanghai and Shenzhen to work as translators, but it was difficult to make a living, and they will return to their hometown to develop after 2 or 3 years. Although the salary in mainland cities is only about 4,500 yuan, you can live a good life and have the opportunity to buy a house, and there is still a lot of room for salary improvement. Although some positions in China have low wages and benefits, the turnover rate is also low, and there is never a shortage of applicants. On the other hand, compared with Japan, China has very large regional differences in prices and income levels. Real estate is an important source of capital accumulation. It is difficult to judge the quality of life of others through wages, so simple comparisons cannot be made. But even so, wages in private enterprises below 4,000 yuan are still severe.

So, what can we, as Japanese language teachers, do about the current situation of difficulty in finding a job? Dalian is a case worth learning from. When I conducted a survey 2 or 3 years ago, I found that while Japanese language majors across the country were facing a severe employment crisis, Dalian was the only exception. The employment situation of Japanese language majors was still very good, and the activity of Japanese language talents in the outsourcing industry was particularly eye-catching. There are many telephone customer service companies in Dalian, which mainly undertake customer service work for manufacturers. Employees' salaries are nearly twice as high as the average monthly income of Chinese people. These customer service staff use Japanese every day, so their Japanese proficiency can also be improved. Although data entry is a common form of outsourcing business, if you do telephone customer service, employees need to talk directly with the company's customers. This not only requires language skills and knowledge reserves, but also requires high communication skills and etiquette, so the work The difficulty is relatively high. From a business perspective, instead of hiring Japanese employees in Japan, it is better to hire Chinese employees in Dalian with high salaries, and the quality of life of these employees can also be better than working in Japan.

In addition, Japan’s labor force is gradually decreasing, and the maintenance of the pension system is a major issue. The foreign labor force, mainly Chinese, is becoming an important pillar of Japanese society. The Japanese House of Representatives passed amendments to the Immigration Control Law in November last year to speed up the attraction of foreign labor. In the past, Chinese undergraduate students majoring in Japanese chose to study in Japan and then work in Japan after graduation. In the future, more and more students may go to Japan directly to work in Japan after graduation.

The times have changed dramatically, and Japanese language education in Chinese universities does not seem to be cultivating talents that meet the needs of society. The contents of teaching materials such as business Japanese conversation and business writing still remain in the scenario of accompanying expatriates and general managers on their travels, but these are no longer the talents that companies need. Not only that, online learning methods and learning content are also quite rich. In this era when students can learn independently, it is undoubtedly urgent for teachers to change their responsibilities according to new needs.

The current Japanese language education is still facing a very important problem. What enterprises need are fresh graduates or cross-professional talents with strong working ability, but university teachers often have no experience in working in enterprises, and their knowledge structure is specialized but not broad enough. The university attaches great importance to scientific research. Teaching teachers to impart the professional knowledge they have learned should be the original intention of the curriculum. The appointment of teachers is also based on degree qualifications and research results as the evaluation criteria. As a result, the recruitment conditions (ability, experience) of university teachers are inconsistent with the actual business content (teaching), making it difficult for teachers to balance research and teaching. To make matters worse, in recent years, the employment conditions for foreign teachers have increased year by year, and the review has become increasingly strict, making recruitment more difficult.

Composition and conversation classes that have been taught by foreign teachers until now are increasingly being taught by Chinese teachers in more and more schools.

In this case, can we consider cooperating with enterprises and inviting front-line staff to give lectures on interpretation, translation, business etiquette and other knowledge? It is imperative to brainstorm to promote reform. Although it is not easy to implement, if you take a serious look at the current situation of the Japanese major, you will realize that you must have the courage to break the boat to come up with countermeasures and solve problems.

Universities and university teachers should also actively seek opportunities for students to practice in Japan and study abroad in Japan during school. As mentioned above, Japan's working population is shrinking, but the number of Chinese who have high-level Japanese and are familiar with complex jobs is increasing. Through internships, students can gain experience that they cannot get in the classroom. This is also the unique charm of Japanese language that is different from other majors.