Why Japanese workers don’t study─ Trap of hard work.

Japanese workers have skilling motivation much less than US.

Japanese students study hard. During university entrance exam season, many examinees, especially those aiming for high level universities—study diligently. Besides, In PISA’s academic ability survey, Japan often gets high scores¹. Japan’s education standards are not so bad but rather high level in the world. However, when it comes to working adults, Japanese people become rather famous for not studying.

According to Indeed, the percentage of workers who answered “I don’t wanna study business skills” are 29.3% in Japan, much higher than 3.7% in the US².

In addition, PERSOL’s global survey “APAC Employment Reality and Growth Survey” tells that, about studying or self-improvement, who answered “I do nothing” is 46,3%. Surprisingly, that score is the worst of the 14 countries and districts³. Japanese workers have less skilling motivation. So, why do they stop studying? They studied hard when they were students, but they do not keep studying. I’m gonna introduce the three main reasons to explain such a strange phenomenon.

The first reason, trace of lifetime employment

 First, because of trace of lifetime employment. That system was established during rapid economic growth and has been Japanese basic employment system with seniority and hiring fresh graduates. Because of these systems, workers not only could keep working at their company but also get enough money to live and get an official position without the risk of unemployment. So almost all salarymen did not need a career move or studying hard skills. As a result, skilling was not spread among laborers in our country.

The second reason, due to university education and fresh graduate recruitment system

 Second, that’s because we are satisfied when we passed university entrance exams. Because in almost all Japanese university, it is much harder to pass university entrance exams than graduate. Besides, company recruiters require some experience of extracurricular activities like a circle, a part-time job or volunteering in job hunting of fresh graduate than studying some hard skills. So, many university students stop studying.

The last reason, working long time

 Finally, due to working long time. That not only takes away our time after work but also makes us tired and prevents us from studying at home. In Japanese social honestly, people almost discount well-being and do many works. This work style makes workers more exhausted. So, when labor gets overtime, it would be almost impossible for one to study after work.

Trap of hard work

As you know, overwork makes us unproductive and unhealth. But also, that stand in the way of our strategic career up. Working long hours doesn’t necessarily mean gaining more skills. So, workers can’t acquire enough skills on the job and have less time for study at home.

This work style is tough for employees. That’ because even though we expend energy for work, we can’t get enough business skills to change jobs.

Consequently, even when a worker gets older and wants career up, one finds that doesn’t have useful skills to career up and reluctantly stuck at company one belongs to. The lifeline of lifetime employment gradually becomes a chain that prevents us from going away from the company. In our country, now a days, promotions often come with low pay increases; besides it is said that companies no longer maintain the lifetime employment system. Therefore, we Japanese workers are required to pursue more strategic career development.

1. 文部科学省 国立教育政策研究所「OECD生徒の学習到達度調査
   PISA2022のポイント」2023/12/5 https://www.nier.go.jp/05_kenkyu_seika/pisa/pdf/2022/01_point_2.pdf ↩︎
2. Indeed「労働者のスキルに関する日米調査」2025/8/8　https://jp.indeed.com/news/releases/20250808 ↩︎
3. パーソル総合研究所「APAC就業実態・成長意識調査」2019/8/27　https://rc.persol-group.co.jp/thinktank/data/apac_2019/ ↩︎