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＜Data Joke＞ [Japan] How much English contributes to your salary in Japan

  • Release date: Mar 01, 2022
  • 743 Views

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In Japan, there is a standard "Business English" and " Daily English" to show the level of English skill. Generally "Business English" is considered to be higher level than "Daily English" level (I guess). Personally I do think daily conversation is much more difficult than business English though. For work, you are basically familiar with the topics since you the specialist in that area. Especially my industry imports many words from foreign languages. So we naturally put those words into our coversation. Katakana framework is so convenient…

In a meantime, it requires much more wider coverage of vocabulary than work. You have to talk about culture, horoscope, health etc which I feel that I vocabulary is very limited for those. Anyway in Japan, you are required to be "Business" level to get global job.

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Reference : Daijob.com (2022), https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000001275.000005089.html

It seems "how much you can earn more if you speak English" is such a topic in Japan and I found many researches which mention about it.
Standby (2019) * shows that for part-time jobs which requires English, wage per hour increase almost 1.3 times higher than other jobs. Ok, not too bad… if the burden doesn't also go 1.3 times bigger Lol. 


The chart above refers to Daijob.com(2022) which explains how the English level contributes to your salary for full time employee. This defines "Business level" as TOEIC score above 735. This chart has many complicated implication about Japanese culture which made me feel also complicated. Roughly, it seems English level contributes more of your salary when you get older, maybe in Japanese context "higher position". Also it has to be "business level" to get more than average. 


Personally this story reminds me of a story when I prepared to go to Australia for my master. I asked a strange(?) question to the agent (Strange from my current understanding about required English level). How much of score did I have to have in TOEIC to study in master? She smiled to me and said you can not be able to survive if you don't get full score. My score at the time was around 550 out of 9X0…
I'm so grateful that I survived…


*This story uses real data but whole story is fiction.

    Reference : Stanby (2019), https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000056.000034075.html

  • Intage Inc

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    Jun Hasegawa

    I have been stationed in Singapore for many years, and am currently working in Tokyo
    I use data in my writing, but it is mainly jokes.
    Just want to use data not only for logical view but for some fun!

  • Intage Inc

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    Intage Inc.

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