From our other sites
The story
The Kahoku Shimpo reports that 58.76% of job listings in Akita Prefecture are posted at pay rates below the new minimum wage, putting Akita at the top of the national rankings for the second year running. That’s nearly 14 points above the national average of 44.82%, and the gap with the Tokyo metro area — where Chiba and Tokyo both sit in the 33% range — stands out sharply. On the forum, voices insisting that “any company that can’t pay minimum wage should just shut down” clashed with counterarguments that doing so in regions full of essential-worker jobs would make it impossible for people to make a living, sparking a debate over the structural weaknesses of regional economies.
According to a prefecture-by-prefecture job listing survey (as of September 7) compiled by Frog Inc. (Tokyo), which runs a job-listing big-data business, Akita Prefecture had the highest share of part-time job listings paying below the new minimum wage — set to be phased in from this month onward — at 58.76%, putting it in first place for the second consecutive year. That’s 13.94 points above the national weighted average of 44.82%, highlighting a stark regional gap with areas like Chiba and Tokyo, both in the 33% range.
Akita’s minimum wage rose by just ¥139 over ten and a half months…(continued in the paid edition)
Kahoku Shimpo, October 20, 2026, 6:00 AM
Source: kahoku.news / Original article here
What people said
The decisive difference between Tottori/Shimane and Akita is the total fertility rate (average number of children a woman has over her lifetime): Tottori and Shimane sit at 1.43, among the highest in the country, while Akita is at 1.04, among the lowest.
Since these areas can't expect any population inflow, a low birth rate means they're heading toward rapid extinction.
Even among convenience store clerks, the workload varies way too much.
Guess we'd better shut 'em down then (´・ｖ・｀)
Businesses operating on that level deserve to go under lol
Pay the minimum wage.
If you can't, close up shop.
The thing is, it's essential work, so the fallout afterward is brutal.
It's rampant even at Hello Work (Japan's public job agency, which is supposed to comply with labor standards), so maybe it's just a regional thing lol
If there's no money, I guess you just go back to living like the old days when there wasn't any (´・ω・｀)
The locals aren't the ones complaining, you know — it's just outsiders making noise. But Akita really is a nice place.
No lie
It's genuinely obscene
Rolling in it
Small and mid-size businesses have been doing the exact same thing with zero progress for 30 years.
No wonder they're in the red.
The people themselves aren't bad.
It's just that the economy is finished.
You see people badmouthing foreigners a lot on 5ch, but honestly Tohoku just felt like it lacked any energy.
Were there a lot of kids?
Wasn't it just full of old people?
Rural northern Kanto is foreigners everywhere.
Maybe even the foreigners are fleeing Tohoku?
There are plenty of people in this world who aren't worth minimum wage.
Isn't it rough on the companies that have to pay them anyway?
Someone who can't handle a ¥1,000 job might still be worth hiring at ¥500.
And companies want to pay their better people ¥2,000.
So abolish it and set up a system where ¥500/hour and ¥2,000/hour can coexist.
That might work in Tokyo, but wouldn't scrapping minimum wage in a place like Akita just accelerate people leaving?
Someone already on the fence about moving out of the prefecture would think, 'if all they'll pay is ¥500, I might as well just leave.'
I don't think letting companies that can't even pay minimum wage keep operating does the region any good.
In Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka it's foreign tourists and foreign staff everywhere, but in Tohoku I barely saw any.
I got the feeling there's just not much in Tohoku to draw Chinese or Korean tourists.
Though I was only there a few days, so take this as just a personal impression.
My impression is Tohoku draws more of the hardcore, Japan-savvy type of foreign visitor.
Taiwanese tourists, for instance, travel to Japan constantly.
When it comes to independent foreign travelers, Taiwanese are the ones that come to mind.
Fixing up the roads and sewers would do more to stop people from leaving.
They've had the worst birth rate for decades now.
Probably because Akita already has several fancy baseball stadiums nobody uses lol
This country has declined this far precisely because it goes easy on business owners.
There's no way a nation grows by constantly squeezing employees, who are also its consumers.
The minimum wage is actually being paid, so why would anyone need to be arrested?
It just means current pay doesn't meet the new wage scale that's about to take effect.
Even in Tokyo, 33% of listings don't meet it either.
I don't know if you personally are in decline, but don't talk like Japan is.
People who are actually doing things right have seen both their income and assets grow during the recent boom.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Minimum wages differ by prefecture, and this year’s revisions are being phased in from October into November. The reason “listings below minimum wage” exist is that companies are still posting ads at the old rate — as the thread itself notes, this isn’t illegal, just a reflection of rates posted before the new wage takes effect. Opinions split between the view that businesses unable to pay minimum wage should exit the market, and the counterargument that in rural areas full of labor-short essential jobs, forcing them out would directly collapse local living infrastructure — a situation that doesn’t reduce neatly to simple right and wrong. While the Tokyo metro area, including Chiba and Tokyo, stays in the 33% range, Akita’s 58.76% — roughly 14 points above the national average — reflects imbalances in regional labor supply and demand and industrial structure, a fact worth noting apart from any knee-jerk Akita-bashing.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “Share of Job Listings Below New Minimum Wage: Akita Tops Nation for Second Straight Year, Gap With Tokyo Area Stark“.
Leave a Reply