There hasn't been infinite work for quite a while now; I've heard the theory that Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 so that they'd have something to absorb their industrial productivity -- because they were running low on domestic stuff for factory hands to manufacture.

Of course, it didn't help that wealth was very heavily centralized in Japan -- the eight zaibatsu families, the Cho:shu and Satsuma fiefdoms (the army and navy respectively), and the imperial family owned probably a majority of the country's wealth, and the common people were too poor to buy very much or stimulate the economy...