This is a very interesting thread. About the only point I can throw in as a former employer, of both Japanese technical staff and elsewhere, is that there was a significant salary differential between Japan and other developed nations, often to the detriment of our Japanese staff.

In 203-14, we paid highly trained technical support folks (equivalent in skill to a decent software engineer) Y6-9 million in Japan and $80-120k elsewhere.

Those of us on this forum know that Tokyo is no longer super-expensive by world standards, but it does feel comparable to other large cities. So unless the Yen is in a period when it is unusually strong, these salary differentials do suggest things are tougher even for techies.