Note 3-16

16 Abe (2005) pointed out that, regarding the impact of economic globalization, according to the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem, Japan has a comparative advantage in the production of capital-intensive goods as wages are high. He pointed out the possibility that because of this, the fact that production of labor-intensive goods has been shifted to overseas production sites, mainly in other Asian countries, may have contributed to a highly-developed level of the economy, such as the trend towards service economy, and led to an increasing mobility of employment. In addition, Higuchi et al. (2005) pointed out that the introduction and utilization of information technology is a technological change as a saving method regarding regular employees. Specifically, regarding the impact of the advancement of information technology, the introduction of information technology has made business operations digitized and has changed the information processing structure within the company, and as a result, it is considered to be possible that among long-term employed persons, regular employees who are well acquainted with business and also have developed a human network within the company may have lost their advantage over non-regular employees.