Is there an abundance of competent workers over there? Companies can easily replace people? It just seems like bad economics to fire people for taking a week off, even if they're perceived as lazy in the short term. It is usually a lot more expensive to hire and train replacements. (I thought)
The labor market in Japan works very differently than in the U.S. Once your fired or forced to quit from your salaryman job it's much harder to find a replacement than in the U.S.
That must mean there are few options to earn income (with an acceptable level of risk) in order for employers to have that much negotiating power over the employee.
The acceptable level of risk is, of course, subjective and what is unacceptable in certain societies might be fine in other societies.
Japan has traditionally moved people forward lockstep. For example, you and 19 other people join Very Large Company on April 1st (their fiscal new year). You will all be inserted into a department and work there for 3 years. You will all be promoted at the same time. You will all revolve around to new departments in 3 years.
If you are an outlier and get ousted from Very Large Company you are now unable to join a new company lockstep with college graduates. You are a mid-career outcast, and now need to start considering other options.
To be fair, I feel like the IT industry is a little more lenient in this regard. I met a lot of incoming mid-career folk at the game company I worked at, for example.
I think as a society this is changing, especially now that the younger generation is more inclined to "do their own thing" - work part time jobs, not work, rotate through jobs, etc., but it may take some time to deeply change until the previous generation rotates out of the work force (which won't happen soon, something like 60% of the workforce is over 50 right now).
