What Became of Recruited Company No. 1?
Three pieces so far
In the first piece, I looked at how a city that flies the banner of "Happiness No. 1 in Japan" has actually measured that happiness. The scale changed partway through. The unit of aggregation changed. The number of items went up and down. Happiness was rising, yet the share of people who said the city was a good place to live was falling.
In the second piece, I wrote about an option that disappeared. The citizen survey once offered the answer "I would like to move somewhere else but cannot," and more than one in ten people chose it. The following year that option was gone. No reason was given.
In the third piece, I wrote about pilot projects. Five years of them, and public satisfaction had not improved. On the contrary, of the fifty-six policy areas surveyed, that one drew the highest level of dissatisfaction.
What all three had in common was the question of how things get measured.
This piece is about the same thing. Except that this time the ruler did not change. This time the ruler was never going to move at all.
Three and a half years ago, the city promised a number
In February 2023, Semboku City certified one company as "Recruited Company No. 1." The prefecture certified it the same day, and a business location agreement was signed. There was a ceremony, and it was reported in the press.
The two-page document the city issued at the time, "Outline of the Recruited Company," is still on the city's website. It even includes a map of the planned site near Kakunodate Station.
On it, the city wrote this:
Employees At start of operations: 2
In future: 54
The purpose is written there too. The company would "become a place for residents who want to work at an IT company, and advance DX in the local government and the region."
Fifty-four. A number the city itself showed to its residents.
What I want to know is what happened next. Three and a half years on, what became of the fifty-four?
One year later, the city said "ten"
The city was keeping track. At least at first.
At the city assembly in June 2024, the mayor answered as follows:
"At [company name], our recruited company, there are ten people employed including the representative director, and although this is a general estimate, the spending of employees and of the people who visit them is expected to bring an economic effect to the region of more than seventy million yen a year."
Ten. Ten including the representative director.
I have no intention of calling that a small number. Hiring ten people in the first year of operations strikes me as a fine result. It is simply that the plan said fifty-four.
After that, the numbers stop
That is the only figure I was able to find.
I went through the later assembly minutes, but I could not find any answer that updated how many people the company had come to employ. I have not gone through the committee records, so it may have been mentioned somewhere.
At the very least, it is not anywhere a resident could easily find it.
In the third year, the city's own assessment read "not measured"
In March 2026, the city produced a new comprehensive plan, the Third Semboku City Comprehensive Plan. When a plan is replaced, the previous one is assessed. That assessment is printed in the plan document.
Recruitment falls under the policy "Promotion of business location and support for corporate activity." The city had set exactly one indicator to measure how well that policy had done.
Employment rate within the labor force Target: 97 percent
The results column reads "not yet determined." The assessment column reads "-", meaning not measured.
The reason is given as well. The figure comes from the national census, and publication is expected in May 2027. The plan ended in March 2026, so it did not arrive in time.
The Agriculture, Forestry, Commerce and Industry Department summed it up in its own words:
"As for the remaining four indicators, because national statistics were used as the targets, their publication falls in the following year or the year after that, and it was not possible to evaluate them within the plan period."
It was not possible to evaluate them within the plan period.
This is where the first piece connects. Back then, the ruler for happiness kept changing from year to year. This time, the ruler would not move until after the plan was over.
The shapes are opposite, but from a resident's side they amount to the same thing. The result cannot be seen.
Trace the three years and it goes like this. Year one: ten, stated in the assembly. After that: no updated figure to be found. Year three: the assessment closed as not measured.
The city is fixing this. Starting next year
In the new plan, every policy has been given an indicator that can be measured every year. In the background section for the business recruitment policy, the city writes this:
"Despite the strengths the region has, they are not being put to use in attracting companies."
The city understands the problem. And one of the new performance standards is this:
Number of people hired by companies certified by the city as recruited
companies, from fiscal 2026 onward (cumulative)
Target by the end of fiscal 2029: 28
At last, the city has decided to count how many people its recruited companies hire. I think that is a good thing.
What catches my eye are five words at the front of it.
From fiscal 2026 onward.
The company certified three and a half years ago does not enter this recount. How many people it came to employ between certification and March 2026 will still never be counted.
There is one more figure worth setting alongside it. The city's recruited-company certifications now total seventeen since the scheme began. Those seventeen companies, twenty-eight people over four years.
One company's plan said fifty-four.
The mayor has acknowledged the problem
That answer about "ten" has more to it. On the same day, the mayor also said this:
"However, as a result of concentrating on policies that were novel and conceptually appealing, such as the National Strategic Special Zone, the SDGs Future City, and demonstrations of near-future technologies, we had already fallen below the ten-year projection of 24,092 people for 2025 in the population vision drawn up in 2016, standing at 23,835 as of 2023."
As a result of concentrating on policies that were novel and conceptually appealing.
Those are the mayor's own words.
This is where the third piece connects. What I wrote about pilot projects, the mayor had said in the assembly earlier. And in the citizen survey, dissatisfaction with that same field of policy was the highest of all fifty-six policy areas.
The mayor's words and the residents' answers point the same way.
So I am not writing this to say the city is thoughtless. The city has acknowledged the problem out loud, and it is on the record.
And yet the estimates keep coming
But the same set of answers contains this as well.
On the international school, the mayor said procedures were under way toward opening, and went on:
"If an international school of two hundred students were newly opened at ordinary tuition levels, the living expenses of students and teachers and the spending of visiting parents are estimated to bring an economic effect to the region of more than nine hundred million yen a year."
Nine hundred million yen a year.
Two years later, at the assembly in June 2026, the mayor answered this:
"They have indicated their intention to go on to open the school in Semboku City, so I do not intend to set a deadline."
On the same day, asked what would happen if the plan were abandoned, the mayor answered that the city would move to recruit another school.
The nine hundred million was stated. The two hundred students were stated. The opening date is, for now, not fixed.
Setting them side by side
In this city, estimates of what is going to happen are stated readily. Seventy million yen a year. Nine hundred million yen a year. The figures are concrete, and they are large.
The figures for what has already happened are stated less often. The number ten was given once, was never updated, and the plan's assessment closed as not measured.
An estimate is a hope. There is nothing wrong with speaking of hopes.
But I think whoever speaks of a hope takes on the duty of speaking of the result.
The case for the defense can be made
Company recruitment takes time to bear fruit. Industrial policy can only be measured by large figures. The census cycle is not something the city can move. If a company changes its business after moving in, that is a private decision. The school's delay involves another party.
All of that is true, I think.
And still something catches.
They certified, signed an agreement, held a ceremony, and showed residents the number fifty-four. The only thing that was never in place was a way to follow that number.
What I want to say
I do not think recruitment should stop. I have no complaint against the company that came. More companies in Kakunodate is a good thing.
I only think it is wrong that residents have no way to learn how the things that were started turned out.
If it went well, say it went well. If it fell short, write down what was missing. This is not so difficult a thing to write. It is certainly faster than waiting two years for the census.
The Third Comprehensive Plan states that the city "has put in place a system for continuously verifying and publishing progress." If it has been put in place, then let us see it.
If the aim is to be Happiness No. 1 in Japan, then before that comes the work of showing residents how things turned out. That is not the work of aiming for first in the country. It is ordinary work.
Moving on with time while that answer is missing is a way of operating I cannot understand, and cannot agree with.
Please read it
That is enough numbers.
The Third Semboku City Comprehensive Plan is on the city's website. The assessment of the previous plan runs from page 4 to page 8. The outline of the recruited company is still there inside the announcement of the certification. The city assembly minutes can be read by anyone through the search system. Every answer I have quoted is in there.
I believe this is something residents of Semboku City ought to know. That is why I have written down where to look.
If I could find it, anyone can. In fact, I think you should go and look.
[Notes for readers outside Japan]
- "Fiscal year" in Japan runs from April 1 to March 31. Fiscal 2026 means April 2026 to March 2027.
- "DX" stands for digital transformation, the standard term in Japanese public administration for digitalization of services and operations.
- A "recruited company" (yuchi kigyo) is a company certified by a local government under a scheme that offers support and incentives for locating there.
- The National Strategic Special Zone is a national deregulation scheme; Semboku City is one of the designated areas.
- Company names, personal names and the mayor's name are omitted throughout. All quoted material is from documents published by Semboku City and from the city assembly minutes.
