Japan’s employment system and human resource management – coping with increasing adjustment pressures

ABSTRACT This introduction introduces the four papers of the special issue and places them in the wider context of the changes and challenges that Japan’s employment and HR systems have been confronting. The paper first discusses major challenges Japanese companies and the Japanese economy face such as labor shortage, low productivity and womenomics and the problems of recruiting skilled labor. After this, the paper discusses the interrelatedness of these issues and how the papers presented in this special issue provide new insights into these topics. Finally, the paper gives a brief assessment of how the Covid-19 pandemic, which happened after the project had started and which is therefore not reflected in the individual papers, has impacted work and employment in Japan.