A couple of interesting Financial Times/FT Alpha articles about what people are getting as Severance in Japan when their positions get downsized.
Cautionary tail : never accept a transfer out of Japan into HK when its the season for downsizing. In HK the employment law only gives 1 week for each year of service (so for 3 years you only get 3 weeks). In Japan after 1 year, the minimum starting payout is 3 months and it would seem from these articles that longer term local employees are getting substantially more.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/06/26/59211/more-hollowing-out-in-tokyo/
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2008/06/12/13690/hollowing-out-kbc-japan-style-2/
