Japan Press Weekly

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2012 June 20 - 26 [LABOR]

10,000 workers in Osaka governments will lose jobs

A unified body of Osaka prefectural and city governments (HQ) on June 19 adopted a basic policy to cut the number of municipal workers by 10,000 in the course of privatizing municipal subway and bus services.

The Osaka integration headquarters decided to privatize the city subway system, which will result in a cut of 5,500 employees, and 58 out of 139 municipal bus lines as well as garbage collection services which will result in a loss of 2,000 jobs.

The integration HQ is, in effect, a control mechanism initiated late last year to move forward the creation of an Osaka metropolitan government as called for by the Osaka Ishin-no Kai, a local political party led by Osaka City Mayor Hashimoto Toru.

The HQ also decided to combine credit guarantee associations of both the prefecture and the city and to abolish the city’s Center for Gender Equality while promoting early start of operations of a maglev train system (linear Shinkansen) and large development projects related to railways and highways.

The HQ stopped short of closing the two central libraries, the prefectural gymnasium, and the city’s central gymnasium, but decided to abolish the prefecture’s Nakanoshima Library.