Japan Press Weekly

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2015 November 18 - 24 [LABOR]

One out of every four workers in Japan is ‘working poor’

It has come to light that the “working poor” account for one out of every four workers in Japan, while the wealthy are further increasing their incomes thanks to the “Abenomics” economic policies.

The statistics on wages in the private sector which the National Tax Agency released recently show that the number of the “working poor” who earn less than two million yen a year increased by nearly 200,000 to a record high of 11.39 million in 2014. The number of working poor has been over 10 million for nine consecutive years and its proportion in the nation’s total workforce has now reached 24.0%.

The main reason for this is the increase in the number of non-regular employees. The Labor Ministry’s latest survey shows that the ratio of non-regular workers in the workforce topped 40% in 2014. The average annual income of contingent workers was only 1.68 million yen in 2013, while regular workers earned 4.73 million yen.

Meanwhile, the number of extremely rich people is increasing as well. According to the National Tax Agency’s survey on self-assessed income tax, the number of the wealthy whose income exceeds 500 million yen a year went up from 578 in 2010 to 1,415 in 2013.

The total income of these super rich was about 2.33 trillion yen in 2013. Nearly 80% of that amount came from profits on stock transfers. The Abe government has been boosting stock values by implementing “aggressive” quantitative monetary easing measures.

In September, the ruling coalition railroaded through the Diet a bill to revise the Worker Dispatch Law which functions to replace regular employees with contingent workers. The Abe administration’s policies to relax labor regulations are increasingly producing poverty as well as widening the gap between rich and poor.

Past related article:
> Abenomics has increased poverty and inequality in Japan: Gov’t data [November 19, 2015]