Japanese Fret That Quality Is in Decline

東京発のニュース。トヨタやソニーのリコールを題材に，「日本の品質が危ない」という記事。危機感は伝わるが目新しさに欠ける。

The fingers have no main culprit to point to. Some say young Japanese are too lazy. Others say American-style management is to blame.

若者のいい加減さと，米国流のマネジメント・スタイルに原因を求めている

結局，教育の問題に落とし込んでいる。

In Japan’s schools, once lauded for their hard-working students and sharp-penciled test takers, test scores have fallen recently below those of countries like Singapore, South Korea and Finland. Dozens of educators at elementary and high schools across Japan are sounding alarms about declining standards.

工学系学生の減少も深刻の度を増している

Various reasons crop up as possible explanations for declining quality. Universities bemoan that new students are more interested in literature and the liberal arts than engineering. Applicants to engineering programs are down to 8.7 percent of all university applicants this year from 12.3 percent eight years ago.

富士通の人事制度にみる米国スタイルの管理手法も槍玉にあがる。

Others have begun to blame recent American-style management changes, like the end of traditional lifetime job guarantees. Fujitsu, the electronics maker, has backed away from basing salaries on individual performance, saying it hurt employee morale and undermined team work.