April 30, 1999

Kiyoshi SASAMORI
General Secretary
Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-RENGO)

1. According to the latest data released by the Management and Coordination Agency on April 30, Japan's unemployment rate for March was 4.8%, the worst since employment statistics were first taken, and a rise of 0.2 percentage points from February. The number of jobless people increased 620,000 over the previous year to 3.39 million, also a record.
   In particular, involuntary unemployment, meaning people who were forced to leave jobs not for their own reasons but due to corporate bankruptcies amid the protracted recession, as well as industrial and corporate restructuring such as the scrapping of idle facilities on the pretext of strengthening competitiveness, increased for the third consecutive month to reach a new high of 1.06 million in March.
   What concerns us most is the significant rise in involuntary unemployment among those in their late 40s and older, who are at their prime and heads of household, and who have long been the pillars of corporate activities.
   
   
2. The ratio of job applicants to job offers, a leading indicator of the labor market, which is closely linked with business conditions, stood at 0.49 for the third consecutive month in March. This ratio has shown no sign at all of improving any time soon, attesting to the insufficiency of the government's economic and employment measures as well as lingering uncertainty over the future course of the Japanese economy. The number of employed people has also been on a steady decline since January, further dimming prospects for an economic recovery.
   
   
3. It is evident that the deterioration in the employment situation is due chiefly to corporate restructuring as well as the increase in corporate bankruptcies. Both of them can be traced to failures in the comprehensive economic policies, including monetary policy, taken by the government in the wake of the collapse of the bubble economy. It is also clear that the worsening of the labor market mirrors an acceleration of easy "me-too" employment adjustments, justified by strengthening industrial and corporate competitiveness.
   
   
4. The immediate task for the government is to promptly implement measures to help the unemployed stabilize their livelihoods and find jobs, in line with the urgent request filed by RENGO on April 6. The government should also urgently compile and implement a supplementary budget that will ensure the creation of one million new jobs in nursing care, welfare and other life-related industry sectors specifically, as proposed by RENGO and Nikkeiren (Japan Federation of Employers' Associations) at a government-labor-management conference on employment measures. The government must enact the supplementary budget during the current Diet session. A government bill to revise the law on temporary staff agencies, which is now before the Diet, would only lead to increased instability in employment and will by no means be able to serve as a fundamental measure to cope with unemployment. The temporary staff bill should be substantially altered in favor of stabilizing the employment of temporary workers and their terms of work.
   
   
5. Starting on May Day (May 1), RENGO will undertake a national campaign to overcome the employment and livelihood crisis. With calls for comprehensive economic policies to avert the advent of an era of mass unemployment, and to seek the maintenance and creation of jobs and improvement in the quality of jobs, RENGO will launch a variety of movements using the strength of its eight million members, culminating in a June 9 central action and mass rally.
   With firm determination to roll back easy "me-too" restructuring in various industries and corporations, RENGO's component organizations will work toward a joint labor-management declaration on "security and maintenance of employment" and take other actions to help remove union members' worries over job security.