Japan Press Weekly

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2011 January 19 - 25 [POLITICS]

PM offers no solution to severe employment situation

Prime Minister Kan Naoto in his policy speech on January 24 offered no solution to the current severe employment situation.

As for employment measures, Kan said that the government plans to increase the number of staff called “Job Supporters” who help new graduates find jobs and to provide tax incentives for corporations to hire more workers.

“Job Supporters” are employed by “Hello Work” offices (Public Employment Security Offices) in all prefectures to give new graduates assistance in finding a job. However, they are all low-paid non-regular workers, often described as the “working poor” in the public sector.

The Kan Cabinet intends to raise the number of non-permanent workers in the public sector while reducing the taxes of large companies with excess internal reserve funds totaling 244 trillion yen. This shows that the Kan Cabinet is reluctant to secure and create jobs through socially just measures such as one calling on large corporations to fulfill their social responsibilities.

New tax breaks will be applied to companies that employ even more contingent workers. However, this tax incentive will last for only three years and thus those workers will most likely be dismissed.

As a way to push corporations to provide full-time positions to non-regular workers, Kan referred to a government bill to revise the Worker Dispatch Law. However, the bill is useless because it allows loopholes favorable to large corporations.