The employment ice age, fatty meat (tuna)

The employment ice age looks set to return

2009/11/21

The extreme scarcity of jobs that occurred after the collapse of the asset-inflated economy in the early 1990s was dubbed the "employment ice age" and gave rise to "freeters"--young people who move from one part-time job to another.

Writer Keiichiro Hirano was one of them. The 34-year-old recalled the lack of jobs when he was a Kyoto University student in a special issue of Asahi Journal magazine.

Back then, Hirano was writing a novel, but he had no prospects of publication. He and his friends who were looking for jobs felt gloomy, he says.

"Although I was desperate to find work, I had no idea where I wanted to go. I think the painful feeling of having to go out into the working world without a welcome somehow distorted our generation," says Hirano, who won the Akutagawa Prize when he was 23. Except for gifted persons like him, many young people are finding it increasingly difficult to land stable employment.

As of Oct. 1, only 62.5 percent of university students had secured job offers after they graduate next spring. That is 7.4 percentage points lower than the ratio a year earlier and is close to the 60.2 percent of 2003, the lowest figure since the government started taking the survey in 1996.

It seems the job ice age is returning, caused by the global recession that started in the fall of last year.

These days, university students start their job hunt in earnest in the autumn of their third year of a four-year college program. The hiring season opens with briefing sessions for job hunters held by universities. Early the following year, students start visiting prospective employers and applying for interviews. Successful applicants start receiving informal job offers as early as the spring.

In an interview that ran earlier this week on the opinion page of the vernacular Asahi Shimbun, one university student commented: "Calculating backward from the start of the job-hunting process, I feel as though I'm being pushed through my college life in a hurry."

If companies cut back on the number of new regular employees they hire, the job seekers will be busier. Students apply to 100 to 200 companies and try to get promises of employment from as many of them as possible, even from those or in industries that are not their first choice.

If they fail to secure job offers by autumn, they will be seeking jobs with the next year's crop of students who are starting to look for work.

The trend to recruit and hire students as early as possible straight out of school is a gamble for both sides. The economy may be good or bad when one graduates. Competent talent can also be found among people who are not fresh out of school. Prospective employers and employees should have more chances to meet, so as to end this process of distortion.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 20(IHT/Asahi: November 21,2009)

But now, tuna ranks as the top sushi delicacy, and its fatty meat, once considered a bizarre food, is much prized. How fickle tastes and food culture are.

Fickle food preferences can easily change

2009/11/20

When I'm told at an izakaya pub that an item on the menu is a seldom-served delicacy, I can't resist ordering it. Moreover, when I hear it may soon become a true rarity, I get impatient to try it while I can.

Apparently, scarcity is a seasoning that enhances the flavor of food even before one eats it.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas has decided to reduce the allowable harvest of Atlantic bluefin tuna in 2010 by about 40 percent from this year's level.

Much of the Atlantic bluefin tuna caught in waters under the commission's jurisdiction is exported to Japan and comprises half of all the bluefin tuna consumed in Japan.

It typically ends up served in the form of otoro fatty tuna at kaiten-zushi restaurants, where plates of sushi are placed on a rotating conveyer belt. However, thanks to abundant frozen reserves, it is unlikely that the price of such dishes will soon rise sharply.

Still, the news is disheartening.

Atlantic bluefin tuna, which reaches up to 4 meters in size, is among the largest of the tuna family. Mediterranean countries compete to farm the fish from fry for exports to Japan, which consumes nearly 80 percent of the global catch of bluefin tuna.

Moves are also afoot to impose a total ban on the international trade of bluefin tuna on the grounds that it causes overfishing.

Up until the Edo Period (1603-1867), tuna was considered a low-grade fish and was mainly used as fertilizer when caught. A book at the time went so far as to say, "Decent townspeople of the merchant class are ashamed of eating this fish," as well as sweet potatoes and pumpkins.

But now, tuna ranks as the top sushi delicacy, and its fatty meat, once considered a bizarre food, is much prized. How fickle tastes and food culture are.