This was markedly different from that witnessed in the U.S. economy in the early 1990s, when the decline in the number of employees in the manufacturing sector was perfectly offset by increased employment in the nonmanufacturing sector, especially in the health-care and information services industries. The 1990s has thus become known to Japanese economic history as the "lost decade." III.
Progress in dealing with these structural adjustment pressures Since the mid-1990s, most Japanese firms have devoted considerable efforts to downsizing and restructuring their businesses. The actual implementation of business restructuring has differed significantly across individual firms, depending on specific conditions at firms and within their given  2/6  industries.