ABSTRACT
For much of the second half of the twentieth century Japan experienced substantial economic growth and low levels of unemployment. This high level of growth ceased in the early 1990s following the collapse of the ‘bubble’ economy, the rising competitiveness of a number of Asian countries and the financial crisis which spread through Asia in the late 1990s. These events took place within an increasingly globalised world, where many Japanese companies had relocated parts of their operations to other Asian countries to take advantage of lower labour and production costs. These factors led to a loss of competitiveness of Japanese industry and a rise in the unemployment rate.
