Such investment has been muted in Japan, however, being typically treated as a "cost" in corporate accounting. We see the difference, for example, in the ratio of Japanese firms' vocational training costs to GDP, which is low relative to other advanced economies (Chart 16).
Meanwhile, the average amount of money spent by firms per employee on offthe-job training and self-development support is also on the wane (Chart 17). To encourage firms to invest in human capital, Japan's Prime Minister announced in a policy speech in January that the government would formulate rules for corporate disclosure of nonfinancial information, including investment in human capital, within the year.