June 1, 1999

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

1. The total unemployment rate as announced by the Ministry of the General Affairs in April was 4.8 percent. It was the second consecutive month of lows in the history. We would like to highlight the following four characteristics:
   
   1). The number of unemployed is 3,420,000. It is more than 520,000 people over last April in 1998 and it the largest number in Japanese history.
   
   2). The complete unemployment rate among males went up to 5 percent for the first time.
   
   3). The number of the people leaving work involuntarily, because of bankruptcy or corporate downsizing, rose to 1,150,000. It is the first time in 11 years and 4 months that this figure was higher than the number that left work voluntarily. Back then, the figure was 1,080,000.
   
   4). Unemployed heads of households was 930,000; about 30 percent of all unemployed. The rate of an effective offer of a situation, which is the suggested index of employment, is 0.48 times greater and 0.01 point lower than last month.
   
   
2. The employment situation is not improving at all. It is only getting worse. The number of the people leaving work involuntarily and unemployed heads of households are increasing. The situation got worse.
   
   One of the reason is downsizing by companies because of the economic recession. The responsibility of the executives should be questioned severely. Particularly, it is unacceptable that the discussion over the competitive power of the industry which prefers to abandon excessive facilities then to get rid of excess workers. That leads to more unsecured employment. Mr. Okuda, the president of the Japan Federation of Employers Associations said that all companies should consider to secure the employment first of all and restructuring should come only after a last resort, after all other options, such as cutting down on overtime work and so on, were exhausted. All executives should remember those words.
   
   
3. A tremendous amount of budget and time was invested in the counterplan for employment. However, it is not effective at all to erase the unsecured unemployment and creation of employment. Rengo can not stress its continued outrage over this situation.
   
   The government should take responsibility for creating new employment opportunities to improve this dangerous situation. Rengo has already proposed ideas that could potentially increase employment by as much as one million employment in welfare, environment and education and so on. Rengo suggests the government create employment opportunities in the necessary field in the society in the future based on the Rengo's ideas as soon as possible.
   
   
4. Rengo takes the situation very seriously. We will demand the government to compile a supplementary budget that would address the problem of creating more employment opportunity as soon as possible. Also, we, all the workers will take action to break through the crises of the life and employment on June 9th. At the same time, regional Rengo associations will take action on June 9th, responding to our call.