The most successful economies have been, and will continue to be, those that train as many people as possible in the human skills required to research, to develop, and to apply new technology  Japan is a model for this sort of training effort  Europe as a whole is in a weaker position: there is a shortage of skilled labor trained to use the new technologies, and there are not enough scientists able to develop and apply the technology
However, even in Japan there is a shortage of technically qualified people, and, like most European countries, Japan has far too many workers qualified to perform only menial tasks
Japan's successful economy depends upon an uncommonly narrow base of highly skilled labor.