Photo: Appealing for "employment measures is the highest priority."

  Amid worsening employment conditions that broke the 5% unemployment rate mark, the 153rd Extraordinary Diet session started on September 27, by focusing on "employment measures." On the evening of 26 prior to the opening of the session, RENGO conducted on-the-street campaigns in front of Shinjuku Station's new Southern Exit. RENGO appealed to office workers passing by on the necessity of creating jobs, expanding unemployment benefits, as well as asking for their cooperation in giving the working people's voices to RENGO.

  Secretary General Sasamori criticized the government's slack response saying, "the employment situation was already critical, now is it acceptable to leisurely discuss employment measures at the Diet beginning from the 27th?" Then, he strongly demanded achievement of immediate measures for job stability and the establishment of a reliable social security system to eliminate citizen's future anxiety.
  Touching on record high unemployment since the end of WWII, he explained the critical job circumstances "it broke the 5% mark so quickly we were completely shocked. What is worse, if you add those who have given up looking for jobs and the potentially jobless to the number of Wholly Unemployed, the actual jobless rate is said to be nearly 10%. (Wholly Unemployed refers to the jobless, those seeking jobs, and those who desire employment if available.) He emphasized that employment measures are the highest priority issues in Japan.
   Finally, SG Sasamori energetically appealed to passing workers for their cooperation. "In the next six months both the ruling and opposition parties should create jobs and set protectionary measures for the unemployed with a supplementary budget. To realize this, we need to honestly put the workers' voices into the Diet."