Japan Press Weekly

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2015 October 21 - 27 [LABOR]

Abe’s claim about upward trend in job situation is untrue

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is boasting that since he implemented “Abenomics” economic policies in 2013, the employment situation and wages have been considerably improving. His assertion is, however, untrue.

Abe says that the number of people gaining employment rose by one million in the past three years. To be sure, the total number of workers increased by 1.22 million between the April-June quarter of 2012 and of 2015, but this is because of the increase in low-paid, unstable, non-regular jobs. During the same period, the number of regular workers decreased by 560,000 whereas non-regular workers soared by 1.78 million, according to the Internal Ministry’s labor force survey. Accordingly, the ratio of non-regular employees to all employees climbed from 34.5% to 37.1%.

The 2015 white paper on labor and the economy admits that the wage levels in Japan dropped partly due to a larger percentage of non-regular workers who earn 40% less than regular workers.

Abe also claims that workers’ salaries increased for two consecutive years and the amount of the increase this year is the highest in 17 years based on a Labor Ministry report on results of labor-management wage talks. This report, however, deals with only a handful of major companies that have benefitted from Abe’s pro-business policies.

Those cited in the report are 314 corporations which have capital of more than one billion yen, have over 1,000 workers, and engage in labor-management negotiations. They account for less than 0.01% of all companies in Japan.

In actuality, real wages have decreased on a year-on-year basis for 24 months since May 2013. They went up slightly in July (0.5%) and August (0.6%) this year but this is attributable to a slower rise in prices. The 2015 white paper on labor and the economy points out that stagnant nominal wages and rising prices pushed down real wages.

Prime Minister Abe keeps his mouth shut about the inconvenient truths in regard to Abenomics even if they are clearly revealed in government surveys and reports.