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News in Easy English: More new workers in Japan want promotion by age, not by results

News in Easy English: More new workers in Japan want promotion by age, not by results

The Mainichi24-07-2025
TOKYO -- A new survey shows that many young people starting jobs in Japan in 2025 want to be promoted by seniority (age and years at the company), not by performance (how well they do their job). This is the first time since 2006 that more people chose seniority over performance.
The survey was done by Sanno University. The university said that more new workers want to keep working and get experience in a stable place more than competing with each other.
In the survey, 56.3% of people said they want promotion by seniority. Only 43.6% said they want promotion by merit (job performance). In the past, most people wanted promotion by merit, but now this has changed.
Also, 69.4% of new workers said they want a job for life. About 89% said they want to stay at the same company for a long time. Even though changing jobs is common now, many young people want to work at one company for many years.
When choosing a job, more people now care about things like good pay and benefits, not just the type of work. The survey showed that "benefit package" and "salary level" are more important to new workers than before.
(Japanese original by Yuko Shimada, Business News Department)
Vocabulary
promotion: moving to a higher position at work
seniority: being at a company for a long time or being older
performance: how well you do your job
merit: being good at your job
benefit package: extra things a company gives workers, like health care or paid holidays
salary: the money you get for your work
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