Turns out the younger man had just made a mid-career move to join TDK, having earlier worked with Japanese tyre giant Bridgestone in Indonesia.
The confident, well-spoken aide in question is one of thousands contributing to a key shift in Japan’s corporate landscape.
In 2024, for the first time, Japanese companies hired more people mid-career than through the graduate intake that had brought in staff such as Mr Saito himself. Those switching jobs are gaining from something unfamiliar in Japan’s corporate life – significant and sudden pay jumps.
In a society where change tended to be glacial, the nascent shift in hiring patterns and rewards is a veritable earthquake challenging norms once taken for granted, such as lifetime loyalty to firms and seniority-based progress up the ranks.
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, one of Japan’s three mega banks, is reportedly in the middle of a major overhaul of its human resources planning that could abolish the seniority-based system.
Indeed, it could be emblematic of wider changes sweeping Japan that, taken at the flood, could presage a national resurgence – although you probably wouldn’t be able to tell if you went just by the surface news.
Slowing growth, ageing citizens
Gross domestic product stagnated in the first quarter, and may not do much better when results for the second quarter are announced soon. Industrial production is expected to fall back in July, after having struggled to grow in the previous two months.
Japan’s acclaimed car industry is gasping against competition from Chinese electric vehicle makers.
A shock drop in demand in May for 40-year bonds suggests investor appetite for long-dated Japanese paper is wearing thin.
On the societal front, this is the year for its demographics to reach a tipping point when the cost of caring for the elderly overwhelms society’s capacity to bear it, a worry that some years ago prompted a Cabinet minister to urge the elderly to “hurry up and die”.
For every three Japanese who die every minute, only 1.3 babies are born. According to some projections, the population could shrink from about 124 million today to 105 million by 2050.
I travelled in interior Japan a few months ago and was startled to see homes abandoned by the dozen.
Not surprising, when you are aware that the population shrinks by more than 2,400 people every day – a seemingly irreversible decline.
Immigrants, investments come knocking
Time then to say, “Sayonara, Japan”?
Not so soon. Broad currents are gathering that, at the very least, could arrest what seems like Japan’s inexorable decline.
There are stirrings at the macroeconomic, corporate and individual levels that raise optimism.
Some of the movements are remarkable, such as Japan’s exit from a long period of deflation. Others have crept up on the nation. For instance, Japan had two million resident foreigners in 2012. At the end of 2024, that number had soared to 3.8 million, according to figures from the Immigration Services Agency.
Counter-intuitively, given China’s bitter memories of Japan’s imperial past, the Chinese are today the top migrants to Japan and numbered more than 873,000 at the end of 2024.
What is more, anecdotal evidence suggests that this number includes hundreds of Chinese millionaires who have moved at least part of their money there and bought homes.
Vietnamese, South Koreans, Filipinos and Nepalese are other significant sources of in-migration.
Aside from ordinary Japanese themselves beginning to show appetite for investing rather than salting cash away in pillows, the wealthier of the migrants are contributing to a surge in wealth managed out of the country.
By some forecasts, funds managed from Japan are expected to nearly double from US$4.9 trillion (S$6.3 trillion) in 2025, to US$9.6 trillion by 2030. (According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, assets under management in Singapore totalled $5.4 trillion in 2023.)
Why are Chinese moneymen moving to Japan? Many do so because they believe Japan’s close strategic ties to the US offer a sort of cover from Beijing’s long arm that could pressure weaker nations into handing over their assets, or revealing them.
Following Beijing’s crackdown on tech companies, China’s most famous billionaire Jack Ma had made Japan his home for a good part of 2022.
Perhaps the biggest endorsement for Japan came from noted investor Warren Buffett. Starting from 2019, it was revealed just before Mr Buffett retired that he had steadily built up stakes of between 8.53 per cent and 9.82 per cent in five top Japanese trading houses – Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo.
“We simply looked at their financial records and were amazed at the low prices of their stocks,” Mr Buffett explained to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in his 2025 letter.
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Others have noticed too. GMO, the investment and asset management firm co-founded by Mr Jeremy Grantham, another legendary value investor, pronounced itself “overweight” on Japanese equities earlier in 2025.
While Berkshire and GMO may be said to be following the money, so to speak, reports suggest that multinational corporations (MNCs) in a wide set of activities are actively planning to move their Asian headquarters to Tokyo from places such as Hong Kong and Shanghai.
While it is no surprise that defence contractors such as BAE Systems or Lockheed Martin may do so given that Japan is poised to significantly up defence spending, a swathe of German and American companies are also said to be in the process.
In 2024, a study by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan and KPMG reported that about a fourth of respondents were shifting regional management functions to Japan. Reasons offered centred around Japan’s economic, political and social stability and the assurances of intellectual property protection.
Nightlife in the big cities has improved and this, combined with safety of movement, is a big draw for expats.
Long-time resident and Japan enthusiast Jesper Koll says several American firms seeking to put regional headquarters in the country have been in touch with him for advice. Over the last 18 months, he adds, 1,200 non-Japanese received a work permit on average daily.
“This country has become an immigration superpower, and of course, you know, once you switch towards meritocracy, in the way that you evaluate people, all of a sudden, everything opens up... Trust me, you and I want to be reborn as a 23-year-old Japanese.”
You could call that enthusiasm leaping ahead of reality, but Japan is undeniably doing some things right. Financial institutions are phasing out lending to zombie companies and instead channelling savings into investments and making money on net interest margins.
Companies are borrowing to build new plants and facilities. The young are taking out mortgage loans and the state’s big fears are not so much about finding them employment as about a wage-price spiral caused in part by meeting their aspirations.
And company boards are learning to not brush off activist investors who complain about lazy balance sheets. It all makes for a fresh turning of the earth, and potential renewal.
That’s where Japan is today, and what is catching the eye of investors such as GMO, who in turn are flagging it to clients. Konnichiwa to the new Nippon.
Senior columnist Ravi Velloor is a former associate editor and foreign editor of The Straits Times.
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