Japan Press Weekly

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2012 May 30 - June 5 [LABOR]

Chiba gov’t wasted 2 billion yen on now-closed Panasonic plant

The Chiba prefectural government had neglected to estimate the potential ripple effect on the local economy before having used 2.03 billion yen in subsidies for inviting a now-closed Panasonic factory to the prefecture.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Tamura Tomoko visited the prefectural government office on May 29, and learned the details behind the withdrawal of Panasonic from the prefecture and the aftereffects on the regional economy.

An official of the local government told the JCP legislator that the pullout of Panasonic from the prefecture “was a real bolt out of the blue.”

Tamura held Panasonic culpable for its plant closure with no consultation at all with the local authorities, but she also criticized the Chiba administration for having blindly attracted a manufacturer to set up a plant in the region by wastefully using tax money. She said, “The prefecture should have also kept in mind possible local economic impacts.”

Advised by the JCP local assemblypersons, the prefecture was able to get back 340 million yen from Panasonic, though the amount is just a small portion of the total amount the prefecture poured in.

The JCP representative then visited the city government office of Mobara where the plant in question had been located.

She found that cleaning and laundry business workers who had had deals with the factory are now suffering sharp cuts in their incomes, the number of people who receive unemployment benefits has doubled, and a growing number of people have moved out to different municipalities.

An official of the city’s job center told Tamura the probability that only 2 in every 10 jobseekers would be able to find a job in the city.

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Panasonic on May 29 announced that it will halve the number of employees working at Panasonic headquarters, out of its workforce of about 100,000 in Japan.

Right now, Panasonic HQ employs about 4,000 clerical workers, 2,000 workers in the R&D section, and 1,000 in the production engineering section. The corporation reportedly will begin offering early retirement this autumn.