Job-changing trends of young Japanese civil servants

SGGP 08/10/2023 09:12

More and more Japanese civil servants are leaving their secure jobs to seek new jobs at startups. In addition to higher salaries, another reason is that startups help more people participate in solving social challenges.

Job-changing trends of young Japanese civil servants

According to Tokyo-based job search agency En Japan, the number of public servants who found jobs at startups through its job sites quadrupled in the two years through fiscal 2022. The number of career changes from the public sector to startups increased sevenfold for those in their 30s and threefold for those in their 40s and 50s.

Meanwhile, Nikkei Asia reported that, citing data from the National Human Resources Agency, Japan has a total of 3.4 million central and local government employees, including teachers and police. Among elite officials recruited by the central government in fiscal 2016, 10% left after less than five years of service, up from 5% of those recruited in fiscal 2013.

According to En Japan, one factor that attracts officials to startups is higher salaries, with 43% of new hires seeing an increase in salary after changing jobs, while only 36% reported a decrease. In addition to higher salaries, startups are becoming more popular and appealing to civil servants partly because of their goal of solving social challenges. Another survey found that 80% of civil servants who wanted to work for startups cited the company's social mission as a key reason for their choice.

Tatsufumi Asayama, 30, a government official, left his career as a civil servant at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to join Tokyo-based healthcare startup Yuimedi in 2022. While at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, he helped Japanese companies expand their business relationships with partners in other Asian countries. But at Yuimedi, he now works to standardize healthcare data to help the pharmaceutical industry and other related industries conduct research more efficiently.

He shared that when he was an official, he could not participate in practical activities. But now, he is directly involved in solving important social problems. According to Initial, a provider of startup information and analytics, nearly 30% of the 2,000 startups that raised investment capital in 2022 pursued 10 areas related to social development such as education, environment, agriculture and pharmaceuticals.

Startups, however, are not attractive to new graduates. According to Penmark, a social media company in Tokyo, only 2% of university students plan to seek positions in startups, compared with 9% who want to work for national and municipal governments or public organizations. If the “one-way exodus” of civil servants continues, experts say, it could sap the vitality of local government agencies.

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