[lbo-talk] Casualization of Youth Labor in Japan (was NYT on French unions)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> On 2006/03/30, at 23:05, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > JC Helary wrote:
> >
> >> But the general labor situation in Japan does not seem to me like
> >> it is getting better especially on the low end of things.
> >
> > Japan is just coming out of 15 years of a near-zero-growth economy.
> > Unemployment rose, but not dramatically. From a distance, it looks
> > like labor didn't do all that terribly during the slump. What's it
> > look like closer up?
>
> Sorry, no stats at hand. But the main concern here seems to be stable
> jobs for the youth. A lot of university graduates can't find anything
> stable and err in part time jobs, staying with their parents, don't
> paying retirement premiums or health insurance. I am sure you have
> articles about what we call "freeters" here in the English speaking
> press. Basically kids hop from job to job and since the contract
> structure is either full employement and social costs covered by the
> company or part time employment with lower wages and no coverage by
> the employer, the freeters basically get nothing but their
> (relatively low) hourly wage. In fact High-school graduates seem to
> fare better in a way, I've read somewhere that their employment rate
> was raising, needs to be checked though. A lot of the young people I
> know aim at the public services for security. Which means Uni for
> most, but also HS+sports (Kendo/Judo) for others who want to enter
> the police force (recruiting a lot lately) or the army etc.
>
> Jean-Christophe

Casualization of labor (which doesn't show in unemployment stats) is  
up dramatically among young workers: see the table "1-1 Freeter [Part- 
Time or Temporary Workers] Ratios by Gender, Age, and Academic  
Backgrounds" on page 3 of "Labor Situation in Japan and Analysis:  
Detailed Exposition, 2005/2006" by The Japan Institute for Labour  
Policy and Training (July 2005)
<http://www.jil.go.jp/english/laborinfo/library/documents/ 
20052006LaborSituation.pdf>.  Casualization has impacted less  
educated young workers much more intensely than more educated young  
workers (see the same table).

Between 1965 and 1980, "The educational premium for workers ages 35  
to 44 in the United States appears to have remained constant at about  
50 percent, while in Japan that premium, initially about equal to  
that in the United States, has declined to about 20 percent" (Robert  
Evans, Jr., "'Lifetime Earnings' in Japan for the Class of 1955,"  
<http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1984/04/art4full.pdf>).  That trend  
toward equality between more and less educated workers in Japan must  
have suffered -- will suffer -- reversal.

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>