- The September unemployment rate released today by the Management and Coordination Agency was 4.3%, with 2.95 million unemployed, maintaining a rate over 4% continuously since the record-setting figure in April, and showing no signs of improvement.
In particular, as a result of the increase in bankruptcies caused by restricted lending by financial institutions and attempts to collect loans, the number of people who lost their jobs due to corporate restructuring, bankruptcies, or other involuntary reasons showed a major increase over the same month one year earlier. Added to this, the ratio of job offers to job seekers, which is seen as an index of future employment trends, fell to 0.49, 0.01 percentage points lower than the August figure, setting the lowest record since statistics were taken.
- RENGO believes that one of the fundamental reasons for the lack of improvement in the employment and unemployment situation is that the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have been decisively slow in initiating economic stimulus measures, job-creating measures, and in creating and implementing a social security system that can dispel anxiety about the future.
At present, there are no signs of an economic recovery, and workers have become increasingly uneasy about their livelihoods and employment. As a result, there is a danger of a further decrease in consumption.
- The government should increase its monitoring of financial institutions regarding the credit crunch and the forced collection of loans, and should take punitive measures against wrong-doing by financial institutions.
RENGO proposes, based on the reality that the period of unemployment is generally getting longer, that, to whatever extent possible, restrictions on the use of the unemployment insurance program be loosened to guarantee the lives of jobless people and support their job-seeking activities, and that the period where such insurance can be paid out be lengthened; and that measures be taken to extend the period for payment of livelihood assistance and job-seeking activities through the introduction of funds from the general account based on the Fundamental Law on Employment Countermeasures.
- At the same time, with regard to job creating measures, RENGO calls for a meeting between government, labor and employers as soon as possible. At this meeting, RENGO will propose programs to implement urgent policies including the following: (1) an expansion and strengthening of facilities and personnel for medical, welfare, and nursing care; (2) the development of businesses to grow and maintain healthy forests; and (3) the immediate realization of 30-student classrooms.
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