A recent report in the Mainichi Shimbun says that Japan's number one gyudon (beef bowl) chain has seen its business suffer due to lack of workers. Sukiya's policy is 24-hour service, but in many areas the company can't find part-timers who are willing to come in during the wee hours. The company has shortened operating hours at about 250 outlets, and a few have even been closed altogether due to the labor shortage. The Mainichi reporter talked to some former Sukiya part-timers who said when they worked the midnight shift they often ended up all by themselves, meaning they had to do everything — cook, wait on customers, clean up, etc. — alone. Besides being nerve-wracking, the job wasn't worth the wage that Sukiya was paying, so they quit.

Sukiya isn't the only restaurant company that's having this problem. Watami, the popular izakaya (drinking establishment) chain that has been called by some a burakku kigyo (a "black company" that exploits its workers), has announced it will close about 60 outlets by the end of the year, which represents 10 percent of all their stores, though the company characterizes this move as being more about rationalization. More personnel will be employed at the remaining outlets in order "to improve the work environment."

There's a certain self-relexive irony at work here since the success of chain restaurants in the past 10 years or so was built on a greater reliance on part-time workers, for whom companies don't have to provide benefits and whose hours and wages can be managed more flexibly. Invariably, the point is to save money so that the chain can be more competitive in terms of prices, but with the labor shortage expanding into other industries, part-timers don't have to work for restaurants, which notoriously don't pay well and usually involve evening and night work.