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The story
The effective job-openings-to-applicants ratio for auto mechanics has hit 5.46, and the severe labor shortage shows no sign of easing. Against an offered annual salary of ¥3.47 million, job seekers are asking for ¥5 million — a gap of ¥1.53 million. In a twist, veteran mechanics already earning over ¥5 million a year can actually end up with a pay cut if they switch jobs. Amid the contradiction of EVs demanding more specialized skills while pay fails to keep pace, commenters on 5ch debated several angles: customers who complain about labor charges but never about parts costs, the growing number of foreign mechanics, and whether EVs spell the end of the trade or make mechanics more essential than ever.
The auto mechanic industry faces a severe labor shortage, with an effective job-openings ratio of 5.46. Yet the offered annual salary of ¥3.47 million falls ¥1.53 million short of the ¥5 million applicants want, and there’s even a reversal effect where veterans earning over ¥5 million take a pay cut by switching jobs. Why does advancing technology demand more specialized skills while experienced expertise goes unrewarded? We dig into the structural issues in this licensed trade’s job market.
Source: merkmal-biz.jp / Original article here
What people said
That whole "there's a labor shortage so they should just pay more" argument is completely wrong.
Raise wages and there's no profit left; raise labor rates and you lose customers — that's why the price is what it is.
At least the customers might suck, but there's no risk to your life there.
Nobody Japanese wants to do the job anymore.
I bet some corners of the internet are out there saying they'd refuse to ride in — or let anyone ride in — a car serviced by a foreign mechanic.
Because plenty of people still wanted the job even at that pay.
There's no proper air conditioning so it's hell in summer and winter, plus you get unreasonable demands from trucking companies and the like.
My older brother, a former auto mechanic, said it was way too 💩 (crappy) and switched over to maintaining railway trains instead.
Even at the biggest railway companies the pay is so-so, and at mid-tier ones it's absolute garbage.
Though the working conditions are probably better.
EVs need mechanics too, you know.
As a certification, that one's cost-performance is genuinely great.
Once you become a proper veteran, temp workers and independent contractors routinely clear ¥10 million a year.
Of course, people at that level have the skills to match.
EVs are so complex that your average mechanic can't do a thing with them.
I guess the suspension and chassis on EVs have evolved a ton too.
Even with fixed labor rates, I'd think demand just isn't keeping up.
The labor charge is way too low for the amount of time it takes per car.
People will pay up for expensive parts without a word, but if the labor charge is high they seriously complain about it.
"Ohh, this one's gonna need the engine pulled to get to that part~"
That's the reality.
Don't talk nonsense when you've never done this job yourself.
Probably around ¥200,000.
With battery costs being high too, these cars are probably going to end up as basically disposable.
Once the control computer breaks down, that's basically it.
I think once production ends, it's close to becoming unrepairable.
Lexus, at least, didn't have any, from what I saw.
It's the end result of a discount war.
Wages probably won't rise until the industry thins out through some consolidation.
Comparing gig work like that side-by-side with regular full-time employment is a bit of a stretch.
Do you even understand what the job-openings ratio means?
What I'm saying is: too many shops, so it's saturated → prices can't go up → wages stay low → nobody applies → the job-openings ratio goes up. That's the chain, right?
I don't get how that "so" follows.
That's completely wrong.
Even if I grant you the "nobody applies" part, doesn't it seem insane that these shops keep posting job openings even though the industry's oversaturated and there's no work to go around?
Background and Key Points of Discussion
The effective job-openings-to-applicants ratio is a figure calculated by dividing the number of job openings by the number of job seekers; the further it exceeds 1, the more severe the labor shortage is considered to be. In the case of auto mechanics, it’s a licensed profession requiring years of hands-on experience to qualify, yet price competition on labor charges makes it structurally hard for profit margins to rise. Opinions in the thread split over the claim that “if there’s a labor shortage, a high job-openings ratio must mean the number of shops is oversaturated” versus pushback against that logic — the discussion never fully untangled how a simple supply-demand shortage and deeper industry-structure problems are intertwined. On EVs, views were split right down the middle between “this is a job that’s losing its need for specialized knowledge” and “it’s precisely because of complex electronic controls that mechanics are essential” — but both sides were really just speculating based on a handful of specific models, and readers should keep in mind that neither view represents a confirmed picture of where the industry as a whole is headed.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (Nanademo Jikkyo G) thread “Auto Mechanic Job-Openings Ratio Hits 5.46x! Industry Says: “The Reality Is We Can’t Get People Even Offering ¥3.47 Million a Year”.”
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