Last week, I emailed the head of EMEA Stratus with “Congratulations!” EMEA is a generic term for Europe, the Middle East, and the African region, and the representative of Stratus lives in Paris, France.
I sent him an email because when we met at our headquarters in June on the outskirts of Boston, we remembered that we were talking about the soccer World Cup. Of course, he was rooting for the French national team, and he seemed confident in the team’s strength. Regarding the Japan National Team, I said that I think it would be difficult to get through the qualifiers, and at that point, I expressed a slightly bearish opinion.
As for the result, as you know, the French national team won the championship by defeating Croatia in the final match, and the Japanese national team also overturned its previous reputation and advanced to the final tournament. Belgium beat England to finish in third place, but Japan ran out of steam at the end of the match against Belgium, but they played a game that led the way most of the time. Compared to France, which has a 19-year-old ace striker, it is difficult to say that the discovery of players leading up to the next World Cup has progressed, but the fact that the Japanese team played aggressively and led the game, and that the play of individual players was able to pass on the world’s strongest players, I think it brought great courage to the next generation of players.
Among European countries, Japan is often said to be similar to the United Kingdom due to its geographical location as an island country and the formation of a country where there is a royal family and an imperial family. In addition, the parliamentary system of government was learned from the United Kingdom. It is sometimes said that the manufacturing industry has a high degree of contribution to the industry in general, backed by technological capabilities, and because it values order and is a serious national character. However, in my personal opinion, in order to solve some of the problems Japan is facing, it is important to learn about France’s experience and various policies.
One is to overcome the declining birthrate. In France, serious consideration was conducted in 1994 when the career advancement rate fell to a post-war low of 1.66, and the following year the Ministry of Labor compiled countermeasures. By backing up the fact that women cannot balance childcare and work at this rate with concrete data and taking countermeasures, the birth rate exceeded 2.00 in 2010. In Japan, I believe that there has been a long period of time when the awareness of the current situation at the political and administrative levels has been somewhat lax. It is still fresh in my memory that the Diet questioning that quoted the blog “Nursery School Fell and Japan Died” became a problem, but while I feel that the French way of proceeding with bold measures is clean, the slowness of Japan’s measures stands out. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government aims to eliminate childcare waiting lists by the end of fiscal 2019 and is likely to promote the development of childcare centers and the securing of human resources. I hope that this will be the first step in overcoming the declining birthrate.
The second is immigration policy. France actively accepted immigrants against the backdrop of a sharp decline in population after World War II. It became necessary to have a large amount of labor at a low price, so we accepted foreign workers. Later, against the backdrop of the slowdown in the economy after the oil shock in 1974, the door to accepting immigrants was closed in principle, and it seems that the flow of migration from labor immigrants to family calls and asylum applications was replaced. If you look at the World Cup squad, as you know, the children of immigrants are playing a big role. Kylian Mbappe, a 19-year-old winner of the Young Player Award, said his father is Cameroonian and his mother is Algerian. This seems to be because associations and clubs are trying to strengthen their skills by opening their doors to immigrant children and players of other nationalities born in foreign countries without limiting race.
However, immigration policy in France also naturally has light and shadow. The impact of accepting immigrants on the labor market and wages. In addition, the increase in social costs from the viewpoint of social security and public order maintenance is a shadow part. In Japan, it seems that this week the government held a meeting to consider acceptance standards and support measures for foreign workers. In fact, it seems that the number of foreign workers in Japan has already exceeded 1.2 million. It includes a technical intern training program and up to 28 hours of part-time work per week for international students. Of course, the acceptance of foreign workers and immigration policies are two different things. Foreign workers are “people who come to Japan to work and earn money”, and they are people who leave their families at home and come to Japan and return home after work. I don’t spend as much money as I earn in Japan as possible. On the other hand, immigrants come to Japan “to live and live”, and basically they also spend money in Japan, and they settle down and become members of society. The current policy is to increase the number of foreign workers but not to allow immigration. Personally, I am a little doubtful that this policy will continue to hold. I think it will be time to learn the light and shadow of the immigration policies of France and other countries and to make a big change of direction.
This blog started with the soccer World Cup, but it wasn’t directly related to the solutions provided by Stratus. To tie the story to a conclusion, in the city of Paris, France, the winner, Croatia, the runner-up, and Belgium, the third-place finisher, the services provided by Stratus servers are running. In England, Brazil, and Mexico, payments are made using services provided by Stratus servers, social infrastructure for electricity, gas and water is in operation, and factory manufacturing sites are in operation.
Once again, I felt our pride as a global company.
