Government to close public job training centers

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Government to close public job training centers

Local municipalities are questioning the Labor Ministry’s decision to close all 83 job training centers throughout Japan by the end of FY 2010.

Job training centers provide job seekers and workers at medium- and small-sized companies with training in construction, plastering, computer skills, and other fields in order to increase their skills and obtain certification. As each center enrolls about 21,000 students each a year, they are essential places for workers to obtain vocational training during the recession.

Japan’s northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido has four public job training centers. A center director in Hokkaido’s Takigawa City said in his meeting with local Japanese Communist Party representatives, “Commercial vocational schools do not train carpenters and plasterers. Closing our center could adversely affect the local economy.”

Hokkaido’s other training center in the port city of Tomakomai has increased classes on how to operate cranes, forklifts, and other port-related machinery. The center’s official warns that if it is closed, students would have to go to the distant city of Sapporo to learn how to operate cranes.

On February 15, the Hokkaido governor and mayors of four municipalities, including Takigawa and Tomakomai cities, sent to the government a joint statement calling for job training centers to be kept. They expressed in the statement that the Labor Ministry’s plan will take away from workers and job seekers the already-limited opportunities to obtain the training necessary to develop their skills.

JCP Dietmembers on February 25 made representations to the Labor Ministry on this issue. House of Councilors member Daimon Mikishi said that it is outrageous for the government to abandon its responsibility to provide citizens with job training and that the JCP will bring up this matter in Diet discussions.

- Akahata, February 28, 2010