In Japan, Older Workers Work Older Machines

摘要

The oldest piece of equipment at Osaka Machine Tool has been there so long that only the company's 70-year-old chairman, Katumi Takata, knows how to use it. He isn't planning to replace it anytime soon. Many other Japanese manufacturers are equally reluctant to spend on upgrades. The average age of their facilities and equipment is 15 years, the highest in tnree decades, according to Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. Japanese plants are becoming outdated faster than those in Germany and the U.S. "Facilities and equipment getting creaky isn't good for Japan's economy," says Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research."Japanese companies could fall behind their foreign rivals." The aging of Japan's plants, on top of the graying of its workforce, threatens to accelerate the decline in local manufacturing, undermining Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to stoke a recovery.