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Antwort in : /alt/activism/d Absender : rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel) Betreff : No Jobs In Japan For Those Over 50 Datum : Sa 25.07.98, 20:16 (erhalten: 16.08.98) Groesse : 6819 Bytes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Ursprung : /misc/activism/progressive
/** labr.global: 349.0 **/ ** Topic: No Jobs In JPN For Those Over 50 ** ** Written 10:55 PM Jul 24, 1998 by labornews in cdp:labr.global **
July 21, 1998
Work opportunities getting harder to find for many job seekers over 50
Asahi Shimbun
The 4.1 percent jobless rate--the highest since the government began compiling statistics in 1953--translates into virtually no jobs for unemployed people aged 50 or over.
At 8:30 a.m. on a scorching hot day, job-hunters swarmed into Iidabashi Public Employment Security Office in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward as it opened its doors. Vacancies are posted in the office the day after they are filed, so the sooner job-hunters go in, the better chance they have of landing a job.
A 57-year-old woman who lives in Tokyo rushed into the office wet with perspiration. Dabbing her face with a handkerchief, she hastily leafed through a file of "help wanted" cards.
She has been out of work since March last year when the construction company where she worked as an accountant moved to a distant location. Her 61-year-old husband is also unemployed. She has been visiting the Iidabashi office and one closer to her home for 15 months but has had few job interviews.
The woman looked through a file of vacancies for people aged 20 to 45. Asked why, she pointed to the thin file that contained job vacancies for older people.
Shortly after 11 a.m., a 46-year-old man from Tokyo returned a vacancy file to the shelf. "Because of my age, it's difficult to get an interview," he said. He had worked for 20 years at a trading company listed on the stock exchange. A client offered him a post four years ago, raising his annual income by 1 million yen. He was confident that although the company was small, it would survive the collapse of the asset-inflated economy. But last summer the company had problems collecting a payment and it lost a bid for a project to a competitor. The banks refused to extend new loans and the company went bankrupt at the end of last year.
The man visited the employment office regularly and found a job with a Tokyo construction company in March. However, he lost his job when his probation period expired in June in the company's restructuring program.
"My son, who will be taking a high school entrance examination next year, said he thought a private high school would be too expensive considering the family's financial situation," he said. "I felt bad that I couldn't tell him otherwise."
Wiping the sweat from his forehead as the temperature hit 34.4 degrees, the man said he was desperate to find a job before the school summer vacations began because he did not want his children to see him idle. He left the employment office to go to a private recruitment agency.
A middle-aged man in a business suit, who was looking at a bulletin board near the entrance of the Iidabashi employment office, said he was not looking for work but had "just dropped by." However, 30 minutes later, he was sitting inside the office going through a file of openings.
A 48-year-old man at the office said he left an electronic-parts company in April last year to take up farming. However, his enterprise failed and he has been visiting the employment office since fall. "The situation is bad," he said. "I can see that the files of job vacancies are getting thinner. Things are going from bad to worse."
By the afternoon, about 200 people were at the office looking for work. The waiting time for middle-aged and older job-hunters queuing to see employment advisers was 90 minutes.
With more than 10,000 job vacancies, the Iidabashi Public Employment Security Office is one of the largest in Japan. However, the number of vacancies went down for six consecutive months from December 1997 to May. The number of vacancies fell 3,000 during that period, while the number of job-seekers rose almost 2,800. According to the office, it is not unusual for dozens of people to apply for a single vacancy.
There was a momentary stir in the employment office as a skirmish broke out between two middle-aged men. The quarrel began after one of them objected to the other man placing his bag on a desk for people filing job applications.
"Although they appear calm, everybody is edgy," said an official. "I wouldn't be surprised if led to greater confusion."
At 3 p.m., there was an announcement that time was up for seeing the employment advisers. Many left the office in silence, but 30 minutes later, more than 100 people were still going through the files.
In May, 983,000 people were receiving unemployment allowances. The number is the highest since March 1976 when recipients topped 1 million as a result of the recession that followed the first oil price shock. The number of recipients is expected to rise.
While the number of recipients is on the increase, wages remain low so income from unemployment insurance premiums is stagnant. As a result, the annual balance of payments of unemployment insurance has been in the red for three consecutive years since fiscal 1994. The balance for fiscal 1997 is also expected to show a loss.
Meanwhile, for four consecutive months since February, the number of recipients of unemployment insurance has shown double-digit growth on the same period last year. In May, the number grew by more than 40,000 from April and nearly was nearly double the number at the time of the asset-inflated economic boom.
More than 600,000 people became eligible for unemployment insurance in April and May alone and the number of recipients is expected to top 1 million in the near future.
The unemployment allowance is paid to job-seekers for between 90 and 300 days, depending on how the person lost their job and the length of service. The allowance pays between 50 percent and 80 percent of the person's salary before he or she became unemployed.
Employers and employees make equal contributions to insurance premiums which are between 0.5 percent and 0.8 percent of a worker's salary.
In fiscal 1994, the balance of unemployment insurance showed a loss of 19.9 billion yen. In fiscal 1995, it jumped to 162.8 billion yen and to 294.5 billion yen in fiscal 1996. Although the figure for fiscal 1997 has yet to be determined, the deficit is expected to be about 350 billion yen.
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