Government must act to provide young people with decent jobs -- Akahata editorial, June 26 (excerpts)

The unemployment rate has reached 10.8 percent among young people at 24 or younger. On the other hand, there are many instances in which those fortunately employed as full-time workers are forced to work many extra hours. One out of every five young people with jobs are forced to work more than 3,100 hours a year, the danger line for karoshi (death from overwork).

Base for social development undermined

The present state of Japan is aberrant in that young people cannot find a job or are treated as expendable labor at menial jobs.

How this crisis of employment among the youth is resolved has a serious bearing on Japan's future.

The government has to acknowledge that the increase in part time workers and unemployed involves the danger of undermining the base for economic and social development.

It is not the responsibility of the young people that they cannot get regular employment. Much of the blame must fall on the Liberal Democratic-Komei government under Prime Minister Koizumi for encouraging large corporations to replace regular workers with contingent workers.

It is extremely irresponsible for Prime Minister Koizumi to shift the blame of the high unemployment rate among the young for their lack of ability or willingness, or both.

Japan stands out among major industrialized countries for its backwardness in measures to increase jobs for youth. In a survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), France has a 40 times greater budget for such measures than Japan, and the OECD average is tenfold of Japan's.

In the European Union (EU), governments have the responsibility to provide young people with jobs, not leaving the matter to job-seekers. In Germany, the government and economic organizations conclude agreements on preparing job training opportunities for 30,000 people every year to ensure job opportunities to every job-seeking youth.

In Japan, it is also necessary to have large corporations fulfill their social responsibility in guaranteeing stable jobs for young people. In the last six years, large corporations reduced 1.08 million full-time jobs, while small- and medium-sized companies added 30,000 full-time workers to their workforce.

Japan has 1.6 million people without jobs at age 34 and younger. If corporations remove unpaid overtime work and allow workers to fully use their paid annual leave, more than 3 million new jobs will be created.

Special budgets and steps called for

In its policy papers for the House of Councilors election, the Japanese Communist Party calls for the need to stop the increase in unstable jobs and to increase decent jobs for young people as a burning national political issue. The JCP calls on the government to order large corporations to employ young people as full-time workers and address the labor shortage in such fields as social and medical services, disaster prevention, and education, which are essential to the public well-being. The JCP will also do its utmost to increase job training opportunities for young people and to get the budget for jobs for youth drastically increased. (end)