JCP chair calls for job security for young people as corporate responsibility

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo urged the government to take steps to secure jobs for young people, citing their irresponsibility of major corporations.

In a face-to-face debate with the prime minister in the House of Representatives on July 23, the JCP chair said that the job scarcity for young people has a serious bearing on the future of Japan in the 21st century.

Shii cited the FY2003 white paper on people's livelihood published by the Cabinet Ministry, which is the first detailed analysis of young people on temporary jobs. This government report holds corporations relatively responsible for the recent sharp increase in such unstable jobs as part-time and contingent jobs. The report shows that major corporations are replacing regular workers with contingent workers while 70 percent of contingent workers are actually seeking full-time jobs.

Shii pointed out that in a comparison between 1995 and 2001, small- and medium-sized businesses increased 30,000 jobs for young people, while large corporations slashed 1.08 million. Shii said that the extraordinary difficulty in finding jobs for young people and the sharp increase in unstable jobs have been caused mainly by large companies. Shii urged the prime minister to seriously instruct large corporations to increase jobs for the young.

Noting that the government white paper pointed out that the sharp increase in contingent workers will have various adverse effects such as making young people feel insecure, restricting economic growth because young people's job skills will not improve causing social instability and exacerbating social problems like the falling birth rate, the JCP chair warned that tight job openings for young people may disrupt the mechanism of reproducing and sustaining Japanese society.

Shii criticized large corporations for forcing workers into unpaid overtime work while dismissing many workers. He cited an estimate by a think tank that 840,000 jobs would be added to large corporations if forced overtime work without pay was abolished.

Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro replied that the job scarcity for young people poses a serious question for the future that cannot be overlooked, and that the government will contact corporations. (end)