No. 1Published by the Cura editorial desk

Published by

The Cura Driver Times

Truck, taxi, bus and warehouse work in Japan, read through numbers and rules

BREAKING

Pay

Pay & Job Openings

Pay and job openings by occupation and by prefecture, read from the Basic Survey on Wage Structure and public employment service statistics.

  1. 2.58×

    Job openings-to-applicants ratio for motor vehicle drivers (FY2025)

    Pay

    Drivers wanted: 2.58 openings per job seeker — Yet pay trails the all-occupation average

    At Hello Work, Japan’s public employment service, the job openings-to-applicants ratio (有効求人倍率) for “motor vehicle drivers” was 2.58 in FY2025, more than double the 1.10 for all occupations. Yet annualized pay, which we calculated from the Basic Survey on Wage Structure (賃金構造基本統計調査), comes to about ¥5.07 million for commercial large-truck drivers and about ¥4.5 million for taxi and bus drivers, below the all-occupation figure of about ¥5.46 million. The jobs that are short of people pay less than average. Here is the detail, by occupation and by prefecture.

    Sept 25, 2026 · 5 sources

  2. 4jobs

    Trucks, taxis, buses and warehouses on the same yardstick

    Workplaces · Pay

    Taxi, bus or truck: which one? — Licenses, shifts, ages and pay, side by side

    They are all “driving jobs,” but the license you need, the shape of the working day and the age mix at work differ widely. Taxi drivers in their 20s already have annualized pay of about ¥4.83 million, and age makes little difference; bus drivers get relatively large bonuses. Large-truck drivers have the highest average annualized pay, but overtime makes up a big share of it. Using public statistics and regulations, we lined up the four jobs side by side.

    Sept 25, 2026 · 10 sources

  3. 4.04×

    Openings ratio for machine maintenance and repair workers (FY2025)

    Pay · Workplaces

    Auto mechanics: 4.04 openings per job seeker — The workplace “next door” to driving

    Every truck or bus depot has people who keep the vehicles running. The openings ratio for “machine maintenance and repair workers,” which includes automotive mechanics, was 4.04 in FY2025, higher than for motor vehicle drivers (2.58). Mechanic is a national qualification, and a garage cannot keep its certification unless a set share of its staff are certified mechanics. A look, in numbers, at the workplace “next door” to driving.

    Sept 25, 2026 · 9 sources