From last December to this January, RENGO conducted its "3rd Emergency Employment Survey" with 4423 RENGO-affiliated unit unions from private sector responding.

1. Changes in Business Size
Overall, 29.8% of all companies "downsized" and 61.1% posted "no change." When compared with the last survey, "downsizing" increased by 6 points, while "expanding" companies or those with "no change" actually decreased .
A breakdown by industry reveals some striking differences. "Downsizing" was relatively high in chemical and textile, transportation, metal, and the construction/materials/forestry industries, while "expanding" was relatively high in the commerce, distribution, wholesale/retail sales, information, publishing, resources & energy, and foodstuffs industries. The sharp eighteen-point increase in the information, publication industry and ten-point increase for the resource/energy industry was especially significant.
A breakdown of businesses by scale reveals that businesses have a greater tendency to "Downsize or Expand" the larger they become.
Out of a total of 30.4% of all businesses with less than 99 workers that changed size 26.2% downsized and 4.2% expanded. On the other hand, out of 54.4% of all businesses with more than 3000 workers, 36.6% downsized and 17.8% expanded.
It is apparent that the larger a business becomes the chances for "downsizing" or "expanding" also become greater. We can find strong diversity by business size.

2. Changes in Number of Workers
(1) Permanent Employees
56.6% replied that the number of permanent workers "decreased" while 32.6% replied "no change."
Compared to the last survey, the number that "decreased" raised 8 points and consequently those that "increased" or showed " no change" dropped.
Classified by industry, a comparatively large number of financial/insurance and chemical/textile industries "downsized" their number of workers. On the other hand, unions that reported to have "increased" the number of workers in the information/publication industries were relatively high. Especially prominent among industries that "decreased" was the financial/insurance industry which recorded a massive drop of approximately 16 points.
Classified by scale, the larger the business the higher "the rate of staff downsizing" was a trend that saw greater increases.
Businesses with less than 99 workers marked a 46.8% reduction in the number of staff, while businesses with more than 3000 workers recorded a 72.8% reduction.
Examining the relevancy between employment adjustment and the change in the number of permanent workers, when businesses had "no employment adjustment" 45.3% registered "no change" in the number workers. However, when there were adjustments, the number of "workers reduced" was roughly 70 to 90%.

(2) Part-time/Temporary Staff
26.1% of the unions reported an increase in part-time/temporary workers, 25.0% showed a decrease, and 44.2% remained unchanged.
Divided by business, one can find a relatively high rate of "downsizing" in chemical/textile and metal industries, while "increases" in part-time/temporary staff was fairly high in the financial/insurance, commerce/distribution/wholesale & retail sales, transportation, foodstuffs, and general service industries. Results varied greatly by industry.
When classified by business size, the possibility for increases and decreases were proportionately larger the bigger a business became. 19.4% of businesses with under 99 workers marked a "decrease in part-time/temporary staff," 19.6% "increased," for a total of 39.0%. However, 29.1% businesses with more than 3000 workers marked a decrease, while 30.7% showed an "increase" for a total of 59.8%. This survey illustrates a simultaneous progress in both increases and decreases of part-time/temporary workers.

3. Actual Conditions of Employment Adjustment
(1) Details of Employment Adjustments Conducted Last Year
While the overall figure for "No employment adjustments" remained at 44.7%, this figure is massive down approximately 28 points from the last survey.
The most common employment adjustments were "overtime regulations," followed by "early retirement incentives," "hiring freezes of part-time/temporary workers," and "temporary transfers/change due to business restructuring." With the exception of "discharges," most of the items doubled compared to the last survey.

4. Trends in Duty Conditions
(1) Workload per Worker
The survey showed 58.2% answered that fluctuations in the number of personnel made the workload "too hard," whereas 40.5% replied there was "no change."
Those who responded the workload became "harder" increased approximately 12 points compared to the last survey. Accordingly, respondents who said there was "no change" in the workload or that it became "lighter" decreased.
On an industry level, approximately 60 to 70% of those in the finance/insurance, commerce/ distribution/wholesale & retail, chemical/textile and food industries replied that the workload "became harder." Similar responses from those in the construction/material/forestry industry showed a sizable increase of about 16 points.
On a business scale level, the larger the industry, the greater number of responses that the workload had become "harder." 46.3% of businesses with less than 99 workers thought the workload had increased, but that number jumped up to 78% for businesses with more than 3000 workers. This survey reveals a tendency for higher workloads primarily in bigger companies.
When we analyze the relevance between employment adjustments and workload changes, 55.9% of businesses that made no employment adjustments showed "no change" while approximately 70 to 80% of the businesses that made employment adjustments reported that the workload "became harder."
Taken together, this shows that employment adjustments, when they involved personnel cuts tended to elicit a higher percentage of "higher workload" responses. As described above in the individual worker's responsibilities section, personnel cuts included "changes to non-permanent status," "temporary employment transfers/changes from business restructuring," "early retirement incentives," "voluntary retirement," "discharges," and so forth.

5. Influences of the Industrial Revitalization Special Measures Law
(1) Trends in Business Organizational Changes
52.1% of the respondents recorded "no organizational changes" while 24.4% reported they "suffered change" (multiple answers). However, 28.2% said they "don't know," which indicates that we still do not have a sufficient grasp of trends at the moment.
"Business organizational changes" include "partial business withdrawals/downsizes" which is the most popular one, followed by "corporate mergers" "corporate spin-offs" "partial business transfers/decommission of plants and equipment."
Classified by industry, "don't know" answers were high in the construction/material/forestry, foodstuffs, and general service industries, while "none" answers were common in the resource/energy, and "business mergers" in the finance/insurance industry. Results differ significantly by industry.
Based on scale, the larger the company, the higher the frequency of "partial business withdrawals/downsizes" and "corporate spin-offs." However, "none" and "don't know" answers decrease as companies become bigger. Conditions vary largely on size.

(2) Expectations for Filing the "Business Reorganization Plan"
Regarding their expectations for filing the "Business Reorganization Plan," 48.3% answered that they had "no expectations." One the other hand, 0.9% answered that "yes, labor/management are talking" and 1.2% "expected" to for a total of 2.1%. However, there were 46.7% "don't know" answers. The survey shows that future tends are indeed hard to grasp. There were no particular differences between industries or sizes, with almost all of them sharing common tendencies.