Japan Press Weekly

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2012 December 12 - 18 [LABOR]

Big businesses cut 1 mil jobs over past 10 years

Japan’s large corporations have cut one million jobs over the last 10 years while accumulating an enormous amount in internal reserves.

Data released by the National Tax Administration Agency shows that the number of workers of large companies capitalized at more than one billion yen has decreased by about 990,000 from 8.49 million in 2002 to 7.5 million in 2011.

On the other hand, the number of workers at small and medium-sized enterprises has increased. The number of employees in small businesses with a capital of less than 20 million yen has gone up by 1.86 million during the same period of time.

It has become clear that big businesses have executed mass dismissals and stored up huge retained earnings to a total value of 260 trillion yen while small businesses have managed to maintain and increase jobs despite the prolonged recession.

The government has neglected to dissuade big companies from discharging workers and actually encouraged their restructuring.

Since the Industry Revitalization Law was enacted in 1999, the state has given large companies tax cuts and financial support in exchange for their downsizing programs. It also revised the Company Law in 2005 so that enterprises can easily reorganize or merge among themselves.

Taking advantage of the Industry Revitalization Law, Hitachi submitted to the government its restructuring plan and received a tax reduction of 420 million yen.


Related past article
> Gov’t puts tax money into corporate downsizing [December 7, 2012]