, Columnist
Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration
A labor shortage could fuel the nation's next innovation boom.
Japan tends to be less wary of automation, even in nursing homes.
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Japan's next boom may be at hand, driven by the very thing that is supposed to be bad for its economy.
Japan's aging and shrinking population has been partly blamed for the on-again, off-again nature of growth and deflation the past three decades. Lately, it's been driving a different and just as powerful idea: In the absence of large-scale immigration, the only viable solution for many domestic industries is to plow money into robots and information technology more generally.