When it comes to recruiting tech talent, Toyota Motor Corp is anything but subtle.
The Japanese automaker recently launched a marketing campaign targeting information technology specialists and software engineers along Tokyo’s suburban Nambu railway line, where the research centers of Japan’s signature tech giants are clustered.
“We want engineers from Nambu Line area more than from Silicon Valley,” says one poster at Mukaigawara station, where one of the exits is designated exclusively for NEC Corp employees.
Toyota’s talent raid is unusual in a country where lifetime employment is still the norm at many big companies.
“It’s very unique for a Japanese company as well-known as Toyota to blatantly target specific talent markets or companies with direct advertising in regional locations like this,” said Casey Abel, managing director at recruiter HCCR K.K. based in Tokyo.
“It says a lot when companies such as Toyota have to get this aggressive in order to attract the talents they need to navigate these markets,” he said.
Such are the pressures bearing down on Toyota as it searches for global IT talent to power its expansion into autonomous driving and artificial intelligence.
Salaries for automotive technology experts have soared in Silicon Valley thanks to the emergence of Uber Technologies Inc and Tesla Inc as serious rivals.
That is why Toyota and Honda Motor Co are looking for engineers at home, where average salaries for IT professionals are about ￥6 million (US$54,210) a year, about half of what counterparts in the US earn, according to a survey by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan.
The technology belt along the Nambu line in Tokyo has historically been a working-class conduit that moved people to and from factories in the Kawasaki area. Now, with a suburban sprawl spreading out from Tokyo, it is gentrifying and becoming more of a place where people are looking to shop, live and work.
It became known as the “high-tech line” partly thanks to the city of Kawasaki’s efforts to build an innovation hub in the past few years, attracting a cluster of IT R&D centers.
About 7.1 percent of the labor force in Kawasaki work in the IT industry, the highest proportion in Japan, according to the government of the city.
“They may have to settle for Nambu Line all-stars until they are able to really compete with real IT giants for market-moving talent,” Abel said.
“I’m sure on a spot basis they can get people in Silicon Valley, but getting them is only half the battle, as the competition is even more intense there,” he said. “Retention and ability to provide people with a chance for meaningful and interesting work is amplified much more when you have Apple, Google, flying car start-ups, Amazon and others all around you.”
Toyota’s hiring posters have caught the attention of engineers because of the enticing, straightforward language, including one that blatantly says: “Oh, you work at THAT manufacturer? Why don’t you come and join us?”
The campaign also went viral on social media, with Twitter users arguing whether “THAT manufacturer” refers to NEC Corp, Toshiba Corp or others.
“It’s very eye-catching and has an impact, and it’s quite a bold move to target a station right in front of other companies,” Junya Ashida, a 39-year-old engineer, said of Toyota’s advertisements at Mukaigawara station. “But I doubt top-notch companies like Toyota really think they want talents from here more than from the Silicon Valley.”
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