Forum - View topicINTEREST: Family Assistance is the Lifeblood for Half of Young Animators in Japan
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Because my employer has an office in Japan, I've thought about this as a "jumping off" point many many years ago. Totally gave up on that idea once I found out the salaries for the same type of positions in Japan. Moreover, even with pay relatively lower than their western colleagues in the same Western company, the pay is still higher than local Japanese companies. The only caveat required for Japanese natives is usually some English skills and dealing with some cultural differences. A colleague of mine used to work in Japan for our company then immigrated over. But perhaps the only cynical, if not spiteful, silver lining is that Japanese CEOs pay are the lowest in the western world and the pay gap between the them and their employees are also the lowest. Japanese CEO pay roughly 10% that of US counterparts I'd much rather see the floor raised than the ceiling lowered though. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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reanimator
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When I look at Japanese work/pay culture, it reminds me of military mentality. In military, high ranking officers (generals and colonels) don't make much money despite they are responsible for assets worth millions of dollars and thousands of people under them. When we compare a general's pay with a CEO of large corporation, the latter makes more money. Also enlisted servicemen make far less money than civilian counterpart for the same job and responsibility. One thing that bothers me about Japanese (and East Asian) corporate culture is that they're too tightfisted on everything. My Japanese friend joked that Japanese companies would stick with Windows XP to this day if it wasn't for cyber security. That being said, Japanese companies ask too little for product and service they provide, even though what they provide is far better than what foreign counterparts might offer. |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Well, the article reported that
By the way, it's not true that average pay in Japan is lower than in Western countries. Average annual salaries in Japan are 4.42 million yen which is about 45,000 dollars in purchasing power, which is similar to average pay in western countries. US media weekly earnings are 850 dollars so over 50 weeks of a year that represents 42,500 dollars, for example. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Perhaps for the entire average population, but that is not what I've come across if you compare by specific job positions. I cited executive pay differences above, and I myself was specifically researching software engineering positions. Let's just say it's rare to start with 100k in Japan with a Japanese company even for experienced engineers while any company who wants to be competitive in the US needs to offer at least 100k for an mid and senior engineering positions (competitive offers are usually 120k+) |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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I'd be interested to see a comparison of Software Engineering jobs compared with various countries (including European and maybe other Asian (non-Japanese) countries). I'm not SURE (maybe, maybe not) if the US alone is a good comparison. Salaries can certainly be high, but SOME of that is likely due to salary inflation with the dual components of stock options and high cost of housing around Silicon Valley. I'm curious if SEs in say London and Paris are closer to Tokyo or Los Angeles. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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@HeeroTX
well, average base pay in Los Angeles is $123,464/yr https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/los-angeles-senior-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,11_IM508_KO12,36.htm This is just the salary, not including stocks. From the stats, Additional Cash Compensation Average is $9,831 to my surpise the salary for this position is actually %2 lower than the national average  I'm assuming part of it is the higher pay in the Bay Area and Washington, and maybe some slightly higher in Austin Texas and along the East Coast skewing the "national" avg a bit higher.
Anyways, from the site, in Tokyo, Japan the avg base pay for senior software engineer is ¥6,500,000/yr or $57,395 at current rates. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/tokyo-senior-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,5_IM1071_KO6,30.htm The only caveat is that since it relies on user surveys (you need to register and input your job info to fully use the site), the sample size is likely not as big as the US, but it seems to match what I've come across. At least the employees who posted specifically about their jobs in Japan by Japanese companies show their pay around that range, such as for Rakuten in Tokyo: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Rakuten-Senior-Software-Engineer-Tokyo-Salaries-EJI_IE40197.0,7_KO8,32_IL.33,38_IM1071.htm Edit: Out of curiosity I looked up animator in Los Angeles and saw: $87,239/yr base pay with Additional Cash Compensation of $4,771 https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/los-angeles-animator-salary-SRCH_IL.0,11_IM508_KO12,20.htm .... but this is a bit misleading because this is virtually all more technically oriented 3D animation positions in major movie studios, VFX production studios, and game studios. The closest I found to more traditional animation is for 2D Key Assistant Animator at Dreamworks https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/DreamWorks-Animation-2D-Key-Assistant-Animator-Los-Angeles-Salaries-EJI_IE36343.0,20_KO21,46_IL.47,58_IM508.htm although that's still 3D oriented (assistant drawing out the key frames that the 3D rigger will then use) What interesting is that there is extremely heavy investment going into animation software development to make animation more efficient and to cut down on the man-hours required. This behind the scenes of Disney's Paperman short in 2012 shows what the future 2D or 2.5D, holds at least in the US (I started at 2:22 because I found that part illustrative of little things that really add up and save time even for 2D work). https://youtu.be/TZJLtujW6FY?t=2m22s Dreamworks spent 5 years engineering their own in house software just to animate How to train your Dragon and I think the custom Paperman software took probably almost as long. |
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