Woes Could Linger for Japan's Jobless 

 

Japan—Long lines have formed at the town hall of this coastal community as residents look for government aid and access to working phones while relief workers queue up for their orders. This week, a new line formed: people looking for jobs.

When an earthquake and tsunami rocked this region of Japan this month, it not only killed more than 11,000 and left more than 16,200 missing; it also left potentially hundreds of thousands of people jobless or unable to reach those workplaces that have even reopened.
Toshio Ota, 56 years old, has driven taxis for 28 years. His taxi company's office was near the airport in the city of Sendai, large parts of which were destroyed by the March 11 waves. He has no way to make the one-hour drive to check on the office, because he doesn't have gasoline for the trip, and the phone in the office isn't ringing. He is assuming the worst.
So on Tuesday, he decided to stand in line at his local town hall in Yamamoto, a suburb south of Sendai, to ask for government help with unemployment insurance as well as finding a new job.
"There is no way I still have a job," he said as he waited with 50 others for consultations with officials from the state's labor bureau. "In 28 years, I've never had to ask for government help. I don't even know how to apply."
When the twin disasters hit, Japan's job market was gaining momentum. In February, unemployment had slipped to a two-year low of 4.6% and was expected to slide further.
While the job market was weaker in many small towns, Yamamoto was seeing some improvement as more of its citizens commuted to Sendai, the nearest big city and a relative bright spot in the regional economy. But a more sustainable rebound has been derailed now, economists say, and the sheer scale of the joblessness could cause problems for years to come.
Most of the 800,000 people who work in the three worst-affected prefectures have had their livelihoods affected, the United Nations said Wednesday, citing Japanese government reports. So far, about 23,000 people have gone to local employment offices to inquire about job opportunities and unemployment benefits, it said.
The government is encouraging many of the displaced workers to visit existing labor offices in the region, known by their cheery name—"Hello Work"—even though there are few jobs available. If anything, employers are looking for as much relief as the formerly employed: The Sendai Hello Work office has been inundated with hundreds of calls from employers wondering what they are required to do for their employees if their businesses can no longer function"The number of calls we get from employers looking to hire at this point is basically zero," said Hiroyuki Uchikawa, a manager at the Sendai office. People in the construction industry will soon be in demand, he predicted, but that won't be enough to put everyone back to work.
As for job applicants, the Hello Work office in downtown Sendai was expecting thousands of them by now, but few have arrived. Many people are still struggling to survive, and many can't get out of their small towns, now that the region's public-transport system is in shambles.
To make things easier for unemployed workers, the labor bureau decided to set up temporary satellite offices in Yamamoto and other towns this week. Officials also are taking out newspaper ads to tell people to come in.
It remains unclear how far officials will be able to go to help them, though. On Tuesday, the government said it would ease rules for unemployment insurance so that people who are only temporarily displaced, or haven't formally been laid off, can also apply. But that won't necessarily solve longer-term challenges if some companies simply choose to shut down. Another possibility is to expand cash handouts to victims, though the cost could strain Japan's resources at a time when the country is already deeply in debt.
Although lawmakers on Tuesday passed a record ¥92.412 trillion ($1.121 trillion) national budget bill for the fiscal year starting in April, questions over funding remained as opposition lawmakers fight a bond-issuance bill.
Getting people back to work is a key step in any disaster recovery. After the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in the U.S., international aid organizations sponsored work programs to pay victims some money as they helped clean up their own communities. But such programs may be difficult and costly to implement in Japan, where wages are unusually high by international standards.
"For people's psychological needs, getting back to work is important," said Diane Johnson, global economics development coordinator for Mercy Corps, a U.S.-based aid group that has implemented work programs in the past and is in Japan this week. "Going to work and having work colleagues is part of everyday life. Being cut off from this is disturbing."
Mercy Corps has already decided against a temporary employment program in Japan. Wages and the aversion to doing difficult work in the dirt are too high here. Meanwhile, the massive scale of the cleanup means much of the work can only be done with heavy vehicles like backhoes and trucks.

Instead, Mercy Corps is trying to partner with local non-government organizations and banks to make sure small and medium size companies, which account for most jobs in small towns, are able to get loans they need to rebuild on their own.
The difficulties can be seen in Kesennuma, a fishing community in northeast Japan. Many big fishing boats there avoided the waves because they weren't in port, but now they have no ice to store their fish because there is no electricity on land, said Ms. Johnson, who spent part of this week interviewing people there. Many fish-processing companies were destroyed, as well, but some with enough capital are up and running by using big power generators.
Oyster farmers in the area face an even tougher future, because it can take as long as seven years to restore oyster beds damaged in the disaster.
Yamamoto Town, for its part, will have a hard time restoring its industries, which included strawberry farms and tourism. An 800-year-old temple has been severely damaged, beaches are littered with rubble, and all that is left of the local strawberry patches are a few "pick your own strawberry" signs and thousands of flattened metal poles from the greenhouses.
Isamu Sasaki, who owns a painting company, showed up at the town hall on Tuesday to ask what to do about his staff. There will eventually be lots of work painting homes and companies, the 65-year-old assumes, but it may take months.
In the meantime, his warehouse, cars and equipment are damaged and his customers cancelled all orders. He doesn't think he can afford to keep his five employees.
"They asked that I put my employees on temporary leave," with partial pay, he said as he left the town hall. "Then they gave me all these papers to fill out," he said waving a half-inch stack of forms. "This is tough."