In this article I discuss the employment systems of professionals such as R&D engineers and financial experts and specialists in Japanese companies based on empirical data, and explain what changes should be introduced in the employment systems of professionals to enhance their creative performances.

Career development paths of Japanese financial experts and specialists are primarily "internalized" and their inter-firm mobility is not so high as foreign counterparts. Their professional skills are fairly broad, but not so much profound.

Comparative questionnaire surveys data of Japanese and foreign R&D engineers pointed out the traits of Japanese human resource management of R&D professionals. Their external mobility is extremely low, but internal mobility is rather high. Age-limit consciousness of Japanese R&D professionals is very strong and the reasons for it are more organization culture-related than ability-related reasons such as decrease in creativity and technological obsolescence.

As to work environment of R&D professionals, low level of external information exchanges and professionals' strong dissatisfaction with performance evaluation systems are critical flaws in Japanese R&D management. The latter is primarily due to obscure criteria and lack of feedbacks. High performers among R&D professionals certainly want to receive higher salary and bonus, but they desire even more strongly for better work environments such as more freedom at work, more important projects, more research fund, better research-support staff, etc.

To enhance innovative performances of professionals, following changes in organizational and human resource management practices should be introduced : age-free "dual career systems" for specialists and managers, redesigning information systems to encourage external as well as internal information flows, more autonomy at work and less control of professionals under clear-cut goal-setting, and more competitive work environments under stable long-term employment systems.

Since the mid-1980s, Japan has accepted number of foreign workers including illegal workers who are in violation of immigration control laws. Even under the long-continued depression, about 700,000 foreign workers work in various local labor markets. Considering the forecast of population decrease in the future, there emerged a new voice that requests the acceptance of permanent immigrants. However, examination of various points including the tightness of demand and supply of labor in critical areas shows that the labor shortage at the current stage and for the foreseeable future, e.g. 2010, looks not critically serious. It depends on various factors including Japan's foreign direct investment, development of new technology and participation of older and women workers in labor market. We also have to consider the increasing number of unemployed in domestic labor market, which stands at about 3,500,000 in 2001. On the other hand, the Japanese immigration policy has various problems that should be reorganized. They include the measures towards illegal foreigners who are almost 40 percent in the number of total foreign workers and the social integration of those who already overstayed in Japan and who are not willing to return to their countries.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss where woman utilization should be placed in each corporation from the point of view of the relationship between the equality policy and family-friendly policy.

The degree of gender equality in all areas, except for employment, increased during 1991-1998, according to a survey of the Ministry of Labour in Japan. Only employment has been on the decrease. The degree of gender equality in recruitment decreased until fiscal 1995, but has turned around since fiscal 1998. When this was examined from the point of view of the size and type of businesses, it demonstrated approximately the same tendency.

Nevertheless, the number of women who continue to work after giving birth is not increasing. According to the preceding research, the percentage of these women has stayed at about twenty percent for a long time, and it has not been on the increase.

This fact can be explained with relation to the figures of equality policy and family-friendly policy. Having gender equality level on the horizontal axis, and family-friendly policy level on the vertical axis, a certain point of reference at the coordinate axes takes the direction, in the long run, to head to quadrant I, where the two levels are high, from quadrant III, where both levels are low. In terms of the stage of Japanese corporations, it may be interpreted as that it has not reached quadrant I (which means family-friendly companies), even though a change from quadrant III to quadrant II has occurred.

The bottleneck in the family-friendly policy fullness is due mostly to the fact that child-care leave users do not increase so much. The child-care leave program has not resulted in a situation where anyone can use it without any trouble. According to the investigations in 2000, only 20.7% of the corporations considered that "there is no problem" merely as to the child/elderly care leave program. They often specified the following as problems: "it is difficult to ensure a replacement worker" (50.6%), and "how to treat the substitute after the leave user returns" (41.0%). These two factors are the overwhelming answers. The main cause hindering the employees from taking the child-care leave is the personnel-substituting problem.

The workplace is utilizing two ways of dealing with the situation as countermeasures to this substituting problem. One of these methods is to divide the workload among the co-workers in the division, which may be called "the Share method." This case can be seen in the workplace where there are a lot of employees who work about equally on the same assignment. Another method is that in which the vacancy of the leave taker is filled by people of lower-rank positions in a manner of a pileup or falling dominos. This may be called "the Domino (or Jun-okuri) method." In order for the Domino method to function properly, it is necessary for the company to establish a career path in their ordinary routine. The career path means to clarify what kind of work one will take after one's current work.

In order to cope with the aging population, it is important to promote the employment of older people. This paper examines the inherent influences of pension schemes, employment practices and individual behaviors that could pose obstacles to promoting the employment of older people.

Public pension benefits act to reduce the labor supply of pension-eligible older people. There are two ways that public pension schemes have an effect on reducing the labor supply. One is the income effect. Pension-eligible older people are able to retire upon the pension benefit, which they receive as non-earned income. The other is the effect of the earnings test of public pension schemes. Under it, pension benefits may be reduced or stopped according to the level of earnings of pension-eligible people who continue to work and earn income. Consequently, pension-eligible workers tend to reduce their labor supply to avoid having their benefits reduced or cut. In addition to the negative impact of public pension schemes on the labor supply of pension-eligible people, these schemes can also obstruct the full utilization of the skills and abilities of these older workers.

Obstacles to the employment of older people in companies include employment practices that rely upon the age of workers. The most serious among these practices is that of mandatory retirement. Many researchers have estimated the labor supply functions of older people and found that the experience of mandatory retirement significantly reduces the labor force participation possibilities of these people. The mandatory retirement also reduces the utilization of older workers' potential abilities.

Another problem associated with age-based employment practices is the setting of age limits by employers when hiring for job openings. Particularly for workers seeking new employment after mandatory retirement, or even before the age of mandatory retirement for those who become unemployed in mid career, such age limits in hiring seriously constrain their job opportunities. The major reasons for employers to have such employment practices that rely upon the age of workers is their wage and promotion systems that increase employees' rank and wage in line with age and seniority.

Among the aspects of individual behavior, human capital investment and desires of work style are important determinants for workability of older workers. Education is the most typical form of human capital investment. The Hazard show that human capital investment and desires for full time job have a clearly positive impact on older people's survival in labor force.

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The employment of middle-aged and older workers is recently a serious social problem in Japan. Today the employment of middle-aged and older workers is not stable, and the unemployment rate is high. Therefore it is necessary to create employment opportunities for Japan's aging society. The purpose of this article is to investigate the bottleneck problems of employment stabilization, the creation of employment opportunities, and the labor conditions in which middle-aged and older workers can work.

Taking the Japanese seniority wage system in the long view, the level of performance and the salaries should balance. The theory of Lazear, E.P. is a rational explanation. However, Japanese enterprises show a tendency to evaluate their balance in the short view. Therefore the level of performance and the salaries become unbalanced, and the wage system loses it's rationality.

It is a problem that middle-aged workers are short of the will to work in demanding jobs and they do not have the labor skills and abilities which firms require. Some middle-aged workers don't recognise the necessity to develop their abilities and enterprise training is not put to good use. Firms have thought of introducing systems of performance evaluation and a specialized work structure to continue employing these middle-aged workers. Middle-aged workers assent to introducing these systems, but they don't select the systems. They may feel that their positions have become lower and their wages are reduced, but not that the stabilization of their lives is undermined.

To secure the employment of employees in their 50's, the gap between the level of performance and salaries has to be gotten rid of. The improvement of employees' abilities and the creation of employment opportunities in their 60's lead to employment stabilization.

Firms and employees will agree to conditions of employment pattern and wages easily, if the employment opportunities for employees in their 60's are created. This is because the base of their lives will be stable. In the short view, the level of performance and salaries can be kept balanced. However, the important problem remains in creating employment opportunities for older workers. The problem lies in the incompatibility of making the most of their skills and abilities, and constructing harmonious human relations in the workplace.

Almost all students in their forth year in Japanese universities take action to get getting jobs after graduation. So far, there has been no study carried out to assess the effectiveness of their activities.

This paper focuses on their job search activities and the outcome. It is based on the data from an original questionnaire survey that was implemented for over one thousand students at over twenty universities during December 2000 and February 2001. In this paper, after a brief explanation of survey results, the determinants of activity outcome are estimated by regression analysis. In the analysis, the dependent variable is the self-appraisal scores for their own job search activities, in which a higher score means more and better focused activity. According to human capital theory, his/her academic record at university has a positive effect on a score of the dependent variable. Viewing signaling theory, his/her university ranking has a positive effect on it.

The results of the analysis are as follows. First, students who have a higher academic record or/and attend a higher ranking university tend to get a better outcome. Second, students who have strongly committed to the job search activity itself tend to achieve the aimed purpose better. Third, students who participate in a seminar at university, that is a small discussion class in seeking instructions from their supervisors, have a better outcome even if their university ranking is not so high. And finally, students who nurture job consciousness earlier tend to do better.

Based on the results, the recommendations are following two. First, it is better for students to be enthusiastic in learning and a seminar at his/her university and to tackle their job search activities in earnest. Second, universities must encourage these students' activities.

In the recent years, the "family-friendly" concept, that companies offer the work environment and working conditions to suit the needs of employees, has been introduced in Japan, and is now starting to influence on the employment systems of the Japanese companies.

"Family-friendly" companies became noticeable in the 1980s in the United States, and increased in number during the following decade. Companies with family-friendly programs have been recognized as excellent companies, and their concepts have been made into a corporate culture. The objective of this study is to examine what the driving force was for the companies to head in this direction, what the background has been like, and what kind of new working conditions were instituted up in the U.S.

Following the brief introduction in Section One, I review American transitions in Section Two: (1) transitions in American families, compairing the 1950s with the 1990s, (2) employees demands to the companies, with a brief summary of corporate childcare policies after the 1960s, and (3) "family-friendly" culture, which is derived from childcare needs of employees in the United States.

In Section Three, in order to examine what a family-friendly company is actually like, a case study of Patagonia Inc., a pioneer in this sphere is introduced. I discuss (1) the reason why Patagonia is introduced here, and (2) its family-friendly programs, including its corporate childcare center, other childcare programs, flex systems/telecommuting, and the "Domino" method, a way of substituting personnel when a leave takes place.

Section Four discusses the family-friendly trend in Japan, introducing the official commendations of family-friendly companies which were started in 1999, and the last section concludes by suggesting the growing importance of family-friendly companies in this country, which is creating gender-equal circumstances in an aging society with fewer children.