2  5  However, after the bubble burst in the first half of the 1990s, firms were burdened by the "three excesses" in employment, production capacity, and debt. 3 The working styles that involve traditional employment practices were slow in changing.
Many firms addressed the decline in earnings by means of cost structure reforms, mainly by squeezing fixed expenses such as labor and depreciation costs and shifting their production bases to developing economies with cheap labor costs. Therefore, the realignment of their business portfolio, which would enhance their value-added, was postponed.