Hoje cheguei uma hora atrasada no trabalho- mais um suicidio na linha do trem...

Segue um artigo do Bloomberg que conta muito do que tem acontecido atualmente por aqui, por coincidencia, meu local de trabalho atual eh a uma quadra do Hibiya Koen, onde os sem teto tem se abrigado ultimamente e no ano novo aconteceu inclusive um evento de distribuicao de SOBA (macarrao que os japoneses comem na virada do ano -pq eh compriido, pra se ter uma vida looonga, sabe?XD) para os recens sem teto-trabalho. E os temporary workers, sao os chamados HAKEN SHAIN(派遣社員）- a grande maioria dos brasileiros (chineses, filipinos, peruanos e outros tb) que trabalham aqui se encontram nessa categoria.



"Suicides, Homeless Ranks to Swell in Japan as Firms Slash Jobs

By Stuart Biggs and Toko Sekiguchi
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) --

Homeless and suicide numbers in Japan may spike as manufacturers including Sony Corp., Panasonic Corp. and Honda Motor Co. fire thousands of workers to cut costs amid the country’s worst recession since World War II, unions said.
Some 400,000 temporary workers will lose their jobs by March, according to the Japan Manufacturing Outsourcing Association. Japan’s unemployment rate jumped the most in 41 years in December, to 4.4 percent from 3.9 percent a month earlier, as companies laid off an estimated 88,000 temporary staff.
Changes in labor law since 1999 have left a third of Japan’s workforce employed on short-term contracts offering little security and no unemployment benefits. Wages are often less than welfare payments and many temporary workers live in company dormitories, leaving newly unemployed also homeless, unions and activists say.
“Getting fired in Japan can also mean losing a place to live,” said Makoto Yuasa, head of Moyai, a support group for the jobless and homeless. “There’s not enough security or protection for people who lose their jobs.”
Then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi extended changes to labor laws in 2004 to let carmakers and other manufacturers use more temporary workers to help the country recover from almost a decade of economic stagnation. The policy undermined Japan’s so- called lifetime employment system, letting companies hire and fire to meet production needs.
Economy Grows
The changes coincided with Japan’s longest postwar economic expansion from February 2002 to October 2007. Excluding financial and insurance firms, corporate profits rose 58 percent between fiscal years 2001 and 2007, according to the Ministry of Finance.
Companies cut costs by hiring from staffing agencies that handle recruitment and training and pay any needed pension and social security contributions. The rolls of non-regular workers, including temporary and part-time staff, rose to 34.5 percent of Japan’s 55.3 million employed in September from 24.0 percent in 1999, labor ministry data show.
As the number of temporary workers increased, so did poverty levels as 4.3 million, or 8.1 percent of all Japanese households, earned less than 1 million yen ($11,200) in 2007, up from 3.1 million in 2001, according to ministry data. Workers on minimum wage in Tokyo earn 122,560 yen a month for a 40-hour week, less than the 167,170 yen per month paid to welfare households.
“It’s totally unstable, unlike anywhere else in the world,” Makoto Kawazoe, an official with the Tokyo Young Contingent Workers Union, said yesterday. “You can’t treat labor like raw materials and expect it to conform to a ‘just in time’ manufacturing system. Labor is live human beings who have to eat and survive.”
A Different Recession
The new face of Japan’s job market means the country will also experience this recession in a different way, according to Martin Schulz, a senior economist at Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo. Companies that used to cut wages when times were bad can now fire workers to offset declining earnings, he said.
Over the New Year, about 500 recently fired temporary workers set up a “tent village” in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park, two blocks from the Emperor’s palace, before the government moved them into welfare housing on Jan. 5th.
There’s no sign the layoffs will abate. Honda Motor Co. said it will axe all its 3,100 temporary jobs in April. NEC Corp. will cut its payroll by 20,000 by 2010 and Panasonic, the world’s largest maker of consumer electronics, said yesterday it will cut 15,000 jobs including full-time positions.
Jobless Suicides
Economic woes in Japan historically herald an increase in people taking their own lives in a society that already sees a suicide about every 15 minutes. Fifty-seven percent of the 33,093 who killed themselves in 2007 were jobless, police figures show.
“For political leaders the suicide rate is a sharp warning over policies,” Koichi Kato, a lawmaker for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said in an interview this week.
Prime Minister Taro Aso said on Jan. 28 the government will ease regulations barring non-regular workers from unemployment coverage. For example, Japan’s labor ministry plans to reduce the qualification period for benefits to six months in the same job from 12, starting April 1.
The one thing Japan can’t do is turn back the clock and ban companies from taking on temporary workers, Naohiro Yashiro, a professor in labor economics at the International Christian University in Tokyo, said in an interview yesterday.
“Returning to stricter hiring regulations won’t benefit workers, rather it would put further restrictions on a labor market already suffering from the economic downturn,” he said. “The government needs to make unemployment insurance not just compulsory but also beneficial to short-term workers.
‘‘Lay-offs are like accidents -- you need a secure, flat payment to ensure that you’ll get through it.’’ "