- 14 Mar 2002
- 21,056
- 18,911
Please, someone, tell Sanseito and Ms Takaichi:
If not for the presence of migrant workers, one of the foundations of traditional Japanese cooking could soon be at risk. Dried bonito flakes, the source of the deep umami flavour in dashi broth, face an uncertain future as Japan's labour shortage worsens. Industry figures stress that foreign workers have become indispensable to maintaining the production and processing of katsuobushi. In the western Pacific, some 3,000 kilometres south of Tokyo, a subsidiary of fisheries giant Nissui Corp. runs two large purse seine vessels. Each voyage lasts approximately 25 days, during which crews haul in hundreds of thousands of bonito. On one ship, nearly half of the 30 crew members come from overseas, particularly Indonesia, Kiribati and Micronesia.
Anticipating it would eventually face a labour shortage, the company began accepting trainees from China around 2010. But as wages rose in China and job opportunities in Tokyo became more attractive, applicants dwindled, prompting a shift to Vietnam and Indonesia. "We still have a higher ratio of Japanese workers compared to other companies," Kunisawa said. "Some manufacturers rely on foreign labour for more than half of their workforce. If the workers left, their production could drop by half." One trainee, a 24-year-old woman from Indonesia, is paid 165,000 yen ($1,100) monthly in her first year. "It's significantly more than the 20,000 to 30,000 yen I could earn back home," she said.
View item 190
If not for the presence of migrant workers, one of the foundations of traditional Japanese cooking could soon be at risk. Dried bonito flakes, the source of the deep umami flavour in dashi broth, face an uncertain future as Japan's labour shortage worsens. Industry figures stress that foreign workers have become indispensable to maintaining the production and processing of katsuobushi. In the western Pacific, some 3,000 kilometres south of Tokyo, a subsidiary of fisheries giant Nissui Corp. runs two large purse seine vessels. Each voyage lasts approximately 25 days, during which crews haul in hundreds of thousands of bonito. On one ship, nearly half of the 30 crew members come from overseas, particularly Indonesia, Kiribati and Micronesia.
Anticipating it would eventually face a labour shortage, the company began accepting trainees from China around 2010. But as wages rose in China and job opportunities in Tokyo became more attractive, applicants dwindled, prompting a shift to Vietnam and Indonesia. "We still have a higher ratio of Japanese workers compared to other companies," Kunisawa said. "Some manufacturers rely on foreign labour for more than half of their workforce. If the workers left, their production could drop by half." One trainee, a 24-year-old woman from Indonesia, is paid 165,000 yen ($1,100) monthly in her first year. "It's significantly more than the 20,000 to 30,000 yen I could earn back home," she said.
View item 190