1.   But workers here are accustomed to lifetime employment and see the provisions as a major threat to their job security.

2.   Employees are sometimes shareholders through stock-ownership schemes, but are mainly taken care of through labour laws and guarantees of lifetime employment.

3.   Far better, with the demise of lifetime employment, to switch to a notion of lifetime employability.

4.   If lifetime employment is so limited, to what extent have labour unions fought to widen its coverage?

5.   Lifetime employment gives employees greater career stability, and tends to contribute to better industrial relations.

6.   The system that guaranteed lifetime employment no longer exists.

7.   Among other things, they fear that non-Japanese will break too radically with traditions such as the lifetime employment and seniority systems.

8.   And its guarantee of lifetime employment has factories full of deadwood.

9.   And some big companies that used to guarantee lifetime employment are announcing layoffs.

10.   At the very least, it represents an unwelcome change for a country that has long boasted of lifetime employment and steady growth.