OT(?)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEC to double non-Japanese Asian engineers
By Alexandra Harney in Tokyo
Published: June 7 2001 23:37GMT | Last Updated: June 8 2001 01:16GMT
NEC, the semiconductor and computer maker, plans to more than double the number of non-Japanese Asian software engineers it uses over the next two years to compensate for a national shortage.
Koji Nishigaki, president, was quoted by Reuters as saying at a conference sponsored by the Nihon Keizai newspaper: "We're using the services of about 1,600 Asian software engineers - and we want to raise that number to 4,000 by 2003."
The comments highlight a mounting sense of crisis among Japanese executives and government officials that a shortage of engineers could thwart the country's technological development.
The government is considering plans to make it easier for foreign engineers to work in Japan, even as temporary staffing agencies and big electronics companies begin to hire more specialists overseas.
This unprecedented search for foreign technical help - in a country where immigrant labour has met with significant political opposition in the past - reflects the lack of training in computer languages at Japanese universities. Companies are seeking employees in India, China, South Korea and Israel, where engineering students are drilled in programming languages that Japanese only learn as company employees.
Mr Nishigaki said that there were already 600 engineers in China working on NEC's transition from mainframe computers to the Unix operating system. NEC was among the first Japanese companies to openly seek foreign engineers, especially those from China.
NEC Soft, an NEC subsidiary, said last month that it plans to hire at least 50 Chinese engineers over the next five years.
In particular, Japanese companies have been desperately searching for engineers who understand Java, the programming language that is used in NTT DoCoMo's popular i-mode internet-capable mobile phones.
Although the US and countries in Europe have been looking to Asia for foreign engineers, Japan's search is a blow to its once-vaunted education system and the country's reputation for technological expertise.
Some Japanese executives insist that the engineers are only being used for low-level work. "We let them do the easy stuff," said Atsutoshi Nishida, president of Toshiba's digital media network company. "We cannot expect them to work on the most advanced technologies right away."
news.ft.com |
