ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of Japan's economic development, employment and industry structure. It discusses the influence of the bursting of the bubble economy on the Japanese company system, in particular with respect to the restructuring of the financial sector; management changes in evaluation, remuneration and promotion; and finally the deregulation of the labour market. Although the bursting of the bubble economy was mainly a crisis of the financial sector that had only limited influence on the merchandise economy, many companies introduced new evaluation and remuneration standards that were no longer solely based on years of company attendance, but on personal achievement. The bubble economy has been widely perceived as a radical incident, a turning point in the economic development of Japan. As early as the mid-1980s, first measures for deregulating and liberalizing Japan's labour market were introduced. The aim of these reforms was enhancing labour market flexibility.
