Every day there is more gloomy news about a major manufacturer or retailer or service company cutting jobs — and not just a few dozen here or there, but thousands, tens of thousands. No one gets out alive, except self-made billionaires and McDonald's, which is doing quite well, apparently. People will always need hamburgers.

There are also a lot of magazine articles about the job situation. Aera recently ran a timely three-part series on employment, surveying dozens of individuals in non-blue-collar occupations about their job satisfaction. From the articles, I learned: Job satisfaction was lowest in the retail, tourism and delivery industries; salaries have not changed substantially over the past 10 years; and women on average make about 65 percent of what a man makes for equivalent work. Aera concluded that, overall, job satisfaction is not directly tied to salary. If anything, the articles implied, it has more to do with a sense of "achievement" combined with the belief that one's work is appreciated by colleagues and superiors. Tell that to someone without a job.

It was comprehensive, but there was one industry conspicuously missing from the results. No employees of major broadcasters or publishers were surveyed. The closest thing I found was the mention of a 27-year-old female "secretary" at the entertainment company Shochiku who makes ¥3.6 million a year.