Migration Processes of R&D Workers in Tsukuba Science City : A Case Study of the Pharmaceutical Industry

Knowledge today is considered the most important resource for corporate activities. In fact, the number of R&D workers in Japan is increasing year by year, and R&D expenditure and its percentage within GDP are also increasing. We call these situations" knowledge-based economy" which will provide an environment wherein the industrial region can be changed. So the author has focused on private R&D workers to analyze one of the regional changes under this economy. This paper intends to clarify the migration process of R&D workers in Tsukuba Science City (Tsukuba). These analyses are based on an interview and on a questionnaire survey mailed to R&D laboratories and one mailed to members of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (Nihon Yakugakkai) in Tsukuba. The results are summarized as follows. 1) When R&D laboratories obtain R&D workers, they usually use newly graduated students and transfer workers. There was little movement between companies in Tsukuba, and workers among newly graduated students were from the University of Tsukuba. The external labor market mentioned above and the local labor market in Tsukuba showed no growth. The situation is different from Europe and the United States because the Japanese labor market is embedded in corporate organization. 2) We could see the patterns of the migration process of R&D workers. In regard to newly graduated students, regional central cities such as, Sapporo, Sendai, Nagoya, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka attract university students as potential R&D workers and send them to various R&D laboratories in Tsukuba upon their graduation. In regard to transfer workers, we could see the patterns of personal transfers from the upstream process to the downstream process of R&D and, also from specialists to members of the staff. One corporate strategy is to maintain the lifetime employment system, and another is to circulate knowledge among personnel. So job rotation plays a decisive role in Japanese companies. In regard to workers' job changes, almost all employees move within Metropolitan Tokyo because of the high frequency of employment opportunities there. 3) When many R&D workers search for new R&D jobs, they use a network between corporations and their professors. Most R&D laboratories and R&D workers use no research support agencies in Tsukuba, mainly because these agencies fail to understand their needs. So they don't operate as a channel in the search for R&D jobs. Mentioned above is a pattern concentrating on Tsukuba as a network between university and company, or job rotation. Then workers in R&D in Tsukuba move to other areas by means of job rotation. But some change jobs in Metropolitan Tokyo because they seek employment opportunities as a professional.