We look at a thread on 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” board sparked by a post from someone claiming to be a 28-year-old female civil servant, who wrote: “I won’t feel like getting married or having kids unless new graduates start at a ¥500,000 monthly salary.” In the thread, posters worked out that a local civil servant’s pay structure (base salary plus semi-annual bonuses) does add up to roughly ¥500,000 a month on paper — but actual take-home pay comes to only around ¥290,000, making the gap between gross and net pay the main point of debate. The discussion also touched on work-style questions like whether civil service jobs are stable and easy or actually grueling, and why people stay in public-sector jobs when private-sector pay is higher.
Monthly salary ¥380,000 × (12 + 4.5 bonus months) = ¥6.27 million
Averaged out monthly, that's just over ¥500,000.
The point is that even though it's ¥500,000 gross, it shrinks to ¥290,000 take-home, and on top of that prices are high and there's no real safety net for daily life.
Private sector pay is like double.
And yet every year new young people join chasing stability.
Honestly, civil service really is a stable, easy workplace.
There's no other reason for people with no marketable skills to pick it.
I work for the prefectural government, and everyone's quitting here too.
Depends on the regional cost-of-living allowance.
At 0%, you won't even hit ¥6 million.
That's for civil servants in cities that get the regional allowance.
The competitive ratio has dropped — technical roles are down to something like 1.1x applicants per opening, and even administrative roles are only around 2x now.
Quality's definitely dropping, but eh, it is what it is.
These days you can pass with brains at the "Nikko-Koma" tier (a group of mid-ranked private universities).
If you're MARCH-tier or above (a group of more selective private universities), private sector is the right call — easier than civil service and better pay.
Being a civil servant still counts as real-world work experience though.
At my office, people below even Nikko-Koma level are passing left and right.
The education-level gap with the higher-ups is laughable.
Civil service jobs are about as cushy as it gets.
I came up through the private sector, and honestly the prefectural job is tougher.
I make around ¥4 million.
Apparently if you make it to head nurse you can seriously hit ¥10 million — my dad said he knows someone like that.
Nursing is a tough job that incompetent or dim people just can't handle.
You're a lucky guy to have such a capable wife.
That's just because your old company was way too lax.
By your standards, pretty much every company would seem lax lol
I'm with you on that.
I don't think anyone has the right to complain about being overworked unless they're a genuinely high-performing in a department close to the mayor/governor, or stuck in a department hit hard by a wave of maternity/childcare leave.
Guess that just shows how cushy the environment is.
Everyone knows it's pointless anyway — civil servants fall outside the Labor Standards Office's jurisdiction.
Instead, the union holds a lot of power.
Especially at the local government level.
This is the ultimate strategy.
It makes sense both financially and for raising kids.
Background and key points of this discussion
A local civil servant’s salary consists of a monthly base pay plus two annual lump-sum bonuses paid at the end of each half-year, and the “¥500,000 a month” figure raised in the thread comes from dividing that bonus-inclusive annual income by 12. That’s different from the amount actually deposited each month — posters pointed out that once taxes and social insurance are deducted, take-home pay comes to roughly ¥290,000. Annual income also varies depending on whether a regional cost-of-living allowance applies, so the claim of “over ¥7 million by age 40” doesn’t hold for every local government employer. The thread was split over whether civil service work is “stable and easy” or actually grueling due to understaffing, and opinions also diverged over the burden placed on colleagues by staff taking maternity or childcare leave. More than the pay level itself, it’s the gap between gross and take-home pay, and differing understandings of what the job actually involves, that kept the discussion talking past itself.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Female civil servant (28): “Japan is finished. I won’t feel like getting married or having kids unless new graduates make at least ¥500,000 a month.”“
