Despite the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, Japan’s economy has continued to recover, according to recent government data.

Household spending increased by 0.8% and factory output rose 3.9%, easing supply chain concerns. Japan also reported a rise in retails sales for the first time since the earthquake in March. Seiji Adachi of Deutsche Securities added, "I thought we had to wait until the middle of next year for production to come back up to levels seen before the earthquake."

The earthquake had devastating effects on Japanese manufacturers with some of the biggest ones limiting or suspending production.

However, manufacturers are expecting output to rise 2.2% in July and 2% in August, according to a survey done by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The supply chain and factory industry suffered from a number of setbacks after the earthquake, including power shortage, yet recovery is still on its way. Operating at different hours to peak power demand has helped reduce the impact of this power shortage.

What this means for jobs

The recovery in wake of such difficulties suggests Japan’s economy is stronger than perhaps previously considered. For example, despite Honda announcing an 88% slide in profits in Q1 as compared to 2010, they aptly pointed out that with a profit of 31.7bn yen, they succeeded despite the circumstances and avoided expected losses.

Jobs in supply chain management will begin to return in Japan as the industry begins to grow, even with the devastation after the disasters. This is especially true as many markets worldwide rely on Japanese goods, and with the bottleneck in production easing, they will need to work overtime to fill the backlog of demand.

   
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This article was written by Bella Barda, Emerging Markets Assistant from the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC).

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