December 9, 1999

Kiyoshi SASAMORI
General Secretary
Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-RENGO)

1. The supplementary budget adopted on 9 December 1999 amounts to 6, 789 billion yen, including 3.5 trillion yen for public works, 911 billion yen for freezing/reducing caring insurance premium, 927.9 billion yen for stabilizing the financial system, all of which are financed by the national loan. However, it lacks concrete measures to overcome the sense of insecurity about employment and the future among the people. This can not be expected to stimulate the private consumption. The debate on the budget took only 2 days and should have been deliberated more thoroughly.
   
   
2. RENGO has strongly requested the government and parties that the supplementary budget should: be measures to ease the sense of insecurity about employment and livelihood among the people; create 1.4 million jobs; and facilitate reforms in pension, caring, medical insurance. However, it does not actually imply any concrete measures to meet above requirements.
   
   
3. The public works amounted to 3.5 trillion yen is the Centre of the budget, but it only lists the construction of high-quality roads and measures to respond to the Uruguay Round in the area of agricultural goods, which exposes usual and traditional types of the budget. It appropriates only 100 billion-yen for employment creation as well as 170.9 billion yen to supplement employment insurance, including 51 billion yen for the employment of small and medium enterprises and 32.1 billion yen for the local employment. In the area of social security which has been gaining the public attention, the budget includes rewards for the family caring the elderly based on the agreement by the three ruling parties aimed at the forthcoming election, which will distort the caring insurance system as a whole. With the budget, it seems impossible to find brightness in the future in terms of establishing a strong base for the future of social security systems.
   
   
4. The current stagnation is rooted in the sense of insecurity about employment and future livelihood. The major objective of the supplement budget should be to remove such pressure and to restore the confidence among the people. However, the budget is beside the point. RENGO continues to request for economic policies based on measures to stabilize employment and livelihood of the people and to reconstruct the social security bases.