Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 8, 1993 TAG: 9301080319
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Teresa Watanabe
DATELINE: TOKYO LENGTH: Medium
THE HIGH LIVING'S OUT; `STINGY, STINGY' IS IN
The impeccably coiffed proprietress wears a giant pearl ring and diamond-studded watch as she greets her first-class business customers to Amour, her elegant hostess bar in the tony Ginza area of Tokyo. But what's wrong with this picture?Fusako Mizuyoshi's business is about to go belly up.
At the height of Japan's economic boom just a few years ago, Amour was filled with customers flush with virtually unlimited corporate expense accounts. They consumed $1,600 bottles of Ballantine Scotch and flirted with attentive hostesses.
On a recent night, however, only two customers showed up. Amour's earnings are down by half. Mizuyoshi spends her days frantically calling clients and sending letters asking them to stop by.
"Please, I'm on the verge of bankruptcy," she tells them.
"So are we," retorted one irritated man, abruptly hanging up.
As Amour goes, so goes Japan. The nation's high-flying days of easy money, soaring land and stock values and an orgy of spending are over.
A string of bad economic news has cast gloom over the land: a record number of bankruptcies; banks reeling from bad debt; two consecutive quarters of negative growth for the first time since the 1973-74 oil shocks; the recent announcement that officials have finally owned up to the problems and revised downward the government growth forecast to 1.6 percent from 3.3 percent for the fiscal year ending in March.
Predictions that the economic slump may linger for as long as five years have jolted many Japanese into abruptly scaling back the luxurious lifestyles of the superheated "bubble economy" days.
"It's so painful that people can't even talk about it," said Yoshihiro Emoto, 69, who runs a landmark eel restaurant in front of the once-glittering Tokyo Stock Exchange. "The lords have become beggars."
Thirty-year-old stockbrokers who once pulled down $50,000 annual bonuses are now forgoing his grilled eels, which cost from $14 to $26 a dish; Emoto's business has fallen by half in 18 months.
Fat corporate expense accounts also are out. "Stingy, stingy" ventures are in. Companies are slashing overtime pay, scaling back board director salaries and bonuses and embarking on cost-cutting rampages.
No idea seems too small.
One automaker requires workers to turn in old ballpoint pens as proof that all ink is used up before issuing new ones. Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, to improve productivity with shorter meetings, has taken the chairs out of some conference rooms. President Shiro Fujita claims meeting time has been cut in half, but one employee said the race to book rooms with chairs "has turned into a war."
At Nissan, quotas have been imposed on the number of copies office workers can make. As a result, staff members try to cajole colleagues to lend them their electronic keys to the copy machines, thus allowing them to exceed their copying limits. "It's become copy hell," one office worker said.
Shin Nittetsu (Japan Steel) may have the most direct approach: Besides announcing curbs on overtime, it simply locks the entrance gate on weekends to keep workers from sneaking in to work.
As firms pare their payrolls, the number of jobs per job-seeker fell below the 1-to-1 ratio for the first time since 1988; there now are 96 jobs per 100 seekers, compared with a high of 147 jobs per 100 job The lords have become beggars. Yoshihiro Emoto seekers just last March. The manufacturing sector offered 28.9 percent fewer jobs in October than the previous year, the Labor Ministry reported.
As hard-driving workers spend more time at home, another distinctly Japanese product has felt the crunch: The market has fallen flat for drinks filled with vitamins, herbs and caffeine supposed to provide a burst of energy. Sales were down 2.2 percent industry-wide over last year; the chain drugstore Hoshi Seiyaku recorded a 6 percent drop in its vitality drink sales.
The spending cutbacks by well-heeled couples have reverberated throughout the economy.
Pricey French restaurants are closing in the Imperial Hotel and other prime locations. Beaujolais nouveau once was so trendy that "I drank Beaujolais" became a greeting. But imports have slipped two-thirds since 1988.
How long the cost-cutting lasts is anyone's guess. But Emoto, who has been through many a slump in his 43 years as an eel meister, doesn't expect to be selling lots of eels for a long time.
Of his broker clients, he said, "You can see it in their eyes - the sadness as they walk around town. It's going to take them 10 years just to forget."