Hot August in Japan
In mid-August as this issue of the Japan Labor Flash is published, Japan finds itself in the middle of an extremely hot summer.
In the latter half of July, school had already ended for the summer holiday, and in early August, there are a variety of major events, including memorial ceremonies for A-bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two-week National High School Baseball Championship in Kobe, and a series of large-scale provincial festivals in the Tohoku region. After the events marking the anniversary of the end of World War II comes the Obon festival, which is just around the corner. In a kind of "great migration," masses of families with their children return to their hometowns to visit family graves. At this time of year and the New Year's holiday, every Shinkansen bullet train or airplane is absolutely packed, and drivers on heavily jammed highways are obliged to move at extremely slow speeds for tens of kilometers. One of the final events during this Obon season is the Great Bonfire at Five zen Great Temples of Kyoto which bids farewell to the spirits which have been visiting their old homes.
On Sunday, July 29, immediately before this series of events, an Upper House election was held. It was the first national election for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who inherited the post after Junichiro Koizumi, but the ruling coalition suffered a huge defeat, losing its majority in the House of Councilors.
According to survey findings published on July 18 by Nippon Keidanren (The Japan Business Federation), summer bonus payments to employees at large firms increased by 3.01 percent from the previous year to 910,286 yen, renewing the record for the fourth consecutive year, while payments at small and medium-sized firms remained low. Statistics published on the same day by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare show that the average cash earnings in May of employees at firms with five or more employees totaled 275,148 yen, the sixth consecutive drop. These statistics clearly show the stagnation of SMEs and the widening wage gap between SMEs and large firms. In the meantime, in July, JILPT published the findings of its survey on concerns about work and vocational life. --The survey, carried out in January and February this year, targeted 10,000 firms with 100 or more employees and their 100,000 employees. Effective return rates were 13 percent (1,291 firms) and 7 percent (7,168 employees), respectively. The survey showed that the highest proportion of the respondents, 73.2 percent, cited "their future wage levels" as a serious concern, suggesting greater anxiety among employees as the performance-based wage system becomes more common.
The results of the Upper House election reflect the sense of unease among many Japanese voters regarding their pension payments and future in general, as wages remain stagnant while payments for taxes and pension premiums continue to grow.
In recent years, there have been reports that an increasing number of low-paid freeters use Internet cafes (where comics and beverages are available) as accommodation. The richness and charm of summer are beyond their reach.
