Companies and careers

Some words of Japanese working life have no single English equivalent, because the system behind them is different. Many large companies take on a whole intake of 新入社員(しんにゅうしゃいん) each April and then decide where each one goes — the 配属(はいぞく) — and for decades they promised 終身雇用(しゅうしんこよう), a job for life, with pay and rank rising by 年功序列(ねんこうじょれつ), length of service. Note also that 企業(きぎょう), a company, and 起業(きぎょう), starting one, sound exactly alike; only the context and the writing tell them apart.