With the increased level of education among Japanese young people, the tendency is strong for them to eschew manufacturing jobs. As there is a large gap in working conditions between big and smaller enterprises, smaller-scale manufacturers worry about lack of young worker. This has prolonged the service-age of their production workers. Skilled workers, with average ages of 48.6 years and 30.6 years on the job, have been working in their current firms on average for a continuous period of 22.9. In actuality, to say the least, core workers stay at the same company for a long period of time.
Skilled workers have higher educational background.
The percentage of those 40 years or younger who have high school degrees is high, and especially, for those 34 years or below the percentage with industrial high school degrees is high. Noteworthy is the fact that, the more skilled the workers are, the higher the percentage with intra-firm training experience. Also, the percentage of those with technical high school education is rather high. Japanese skilled workers are said to have a strong sense of loyality to their companies. Presently, those skilled workers who have thought the manufacturing jobs were their ideal job when they were students account for a mere 12 percent of the total.