Jobs scarce but leaders are upbeat

By F. J. Khergamvala

TOKYO, MAY 1. Japan's unemployment rate remained at its record high for March but the top political leaders are putting a positive spin on it as they decide on the best time to hold elections.

The Management and Coordination Agency announced that the monthly jobless rate for men had risen by 0.1 per cent to a record 5.2 per cent and the unemployment rate for women had also climbed by 0.1 per cent to 4.6 per cent. Releasing its seasonally adjusted figures for March, the agency said the country posted an overall unemployment post-War high record of 4.9 per cent for the second consecutive month. For the whole fiscal year ending March 31, the jobless rate stood at 4.7 per cent, the highest since present data compilation methods were begun in 1953.

A top executive of the large Sogo department stores chain committed suicide by hanging last week after he had failed to persuade creditors to forgive about $ 6 billions in debt owed to Sogo's creditor banks. Rising unemployment, such as resulting from corporate failures and restructuring have been a big contributory factor in the increase in number of suicides over the past two years.

Politicians, however, see upcoming national elections and the Prime Minister, Mr. Yoshiro Mori, saw ``signs of improvement'' (in the economy) in the figures. His deputy, Mr. Mikio Aoki, said the figures do not reflect ``the favourable effects of economic recovery.'' But Ministers handling the economic portfolios cautioned against further worsening of the unemployment rate. Mr. Kiichi Miyazawa, the elder statesman and Finance Minister who had long foreseen unemployment as a natural consequence of restructuring, said fresh job creation measures were essential because the jobless rate could go up to five per cent or more. The Economic Planning Agency chief, Mr. Taiichi Sakaiya, also said he expected the situation to worsen before it got better.

In this era of the new economy, the figures do not appropriately reflect reality. This compounds the error factor built into the statistics because of hidden elements. Japan has never shown figures of those graduates who do not find employment or of those others not registered at employment exchanges.

The statistics also count among the employed those who work for short limited hours, such as retired people. An imponderable that should partly balance this statistical distortion is the fact that tens of thousands, especially women, are finding their niche in the information technology sector (IT), where a company often means an individual not registered as part of the work force. Thus, for instance, the number of unemployed in March rose by 220,000 over February, to 3.49 million people but the IT sector probably accounted for a big chunk of the growth in new job offers by 9.8 per cent in March over the previous year.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Make Vietnam prosperous: PM
Next     : It is the other way round there