Life long employment, or "shuushinkoyou" in Japanese, was popularized by the Japanese after World War II, with the idea of instilling a sense of loyalty and belonging to employees, a sense of family at the workplace.
1.) Lifelong employment is the best antidote to fear of layoffs. Layoffs are messy; employees don't want it to happen to them; employers don't want to have to do it to employees. But it's the economic reality and helps the bottom line of companies. The theory goes, you'd rather cut 10% of the work force than have to cut 100% if the business goes bankrupt. Unfortunately with lifelong employment, businesses can't cut delinquent employees and those who are just holding on for a paycheck, so it's hard to cut costs and survive against companies that ARE willing to do so. (Unless you have an awesome business, like right now I think it's pretty nice to be an Amazon or other tech company employee).
2.) What if you don't like your coworkers and work environment? I happen to work right now in a very friendly, welcoming work environment where almost everyone gets along pretty well with around the same educational background and level, so conversations are witty and intellectual as well as productive. But what if Day 1 of the lifelong employment job, you find that it's miserable? Is loyalty worth the daily toil of the job? It's one thing to be stuck with your family who brought you into the world (if you don't like them), but then to be stuck with your work family that will last forever? Cross your fingers and hope to get lucky with the place you work for I guess.
3.) It would be really nice to not have to complete paperwork for new jobs, get all these tax forms, fill out background checks, etc. In the law field there's something called "conflict checks" which require listing all the cases you've worked on for the last 5 years or so to avoid having a conflict of interest with clients, and keeping track of that information is a HUGE challenge.Also it'd be nice to settle down in one area for life so you can, you know, buy a house, start a family, etc. Regardless, it'd be nice not to have to wonder where the next paycheck is coming from, or where next month's paycheck is coming from, or next year's. A constant source of stress for non-lifelong employment jobs, but is it a good stress? Does it make me work harder to get more?
4.) Money!!!! Do you get raises at a lifelong employment? Bonuses? What's the incentive for working really hard? What if I do really at a job and another company wants to pay me more? Seems like some similar challenges as communism faced, the problem of limiting incentives, innovation, and creativity. I've felt it before: when I know my job is safe, I get complacent, not as hungry, and start to focus on other aspects of my life. But because of the cutthroat nature of the workplace in America, I pretty much stay on my toes all the time and constantly looking for an edge to put myself in good position.
5.) Similar idea in the academic world is the idea of "tenure," if you work at a school/university for long enough you become "grandfathered in" and have a certain sense of job security, much more than non-tenured professors. Job security is nice, but does it mean more responsibilities, more pressure to perform better? I think there's a reasonable argument that people work better WITH more job security, that they can argue they can put the stress aside and just worry about new ideas.
6.) There's a reason people switch jobs, switch careers more than past generations of people. There are so many new things out there, the world changes much faster than before, that we want more experiences in life than the same old grind, especially at a job where it's more likely to be the same monotonous tasks day in and day out. There may be some productivity bump just from being able to switch to doing something new that you're interested in and stimulate the mind, like coming back from a weekend with a fresh perspective and fresh eyes.
Ultimately, even Japan, the originator of lifelong employment, is doing away with lifelong employment. It was a good idea for a long time back in the simple times of just living one's life, going to work form 9 to 5, and work as part of life, but with so many different industries and changes going on and tumultuous economic conditions, it's just not realistic. I guess one can be a lifelong member of a company by starting their own company (a restaurant! A tech company! A basketball franchise!) but as a regular Average Joe employee, it's just a dream I suppose.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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