The Students

The Classes

Hard Times for Workers
Employment Office Flooded, but Many Vying for Few Jobs

By Carole-Anne Elliott
Special to the Mercury News
(This story originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on August 8, 2002. Click here to view it on the Mercury News web site)

NAGASAKI, Japan – Kiyoko Fukuda sold upscale women's clothing at the same department store for 22 years. Her stylish clothes, polished look and the energy and ease with which she speaks suggests she was the perfect saleswoman.

Then, in May, her company dumped her.

There were two other people in her department, both younger, but only Fukuda lost her job. Officially, the reason was low sales performance. Fukuda, 59 years old and a widow, suspects it was her age and higher salary.

"It was a good job and I liked it,'' she said. "I was shocked to be fired.''

To officials at Hello Work – the cheery nickname given the government's unemployment office here – Fukuda's case is not surprising. The traditional Japanese employment system gives workers hefty increases the closer they get to retirement, so those workers are prime targets when companies cut costs, said Tadao Togawa, information officer for Industrial Employment. Japan has no law to protect older workers from being fired.

Fukuda was angry, but wasted no time registering for unemployment benefits. Because of her age, length of employment and dismissal, Fukuda is eligible to receive benefits for the maximum 330 days. She said she hopes to find another sales job before her benefits run out.

That might not be so easy. Unemployment is higher in Nagasaki than nationwide (5.6 percent vs. 5.2 percent), and in April the Hello Work registry contained 13,000 job seekers – the highest ever and a 44 percent increase from the average five years ago. About half are older than 45.

Every day, starting at 8:30 a.m., Hello Work's airy office is packed. Job seekers stand in front of flat-panel monitors and tap in their preferences or meet with job counselors around a central, U-shaped desk. But pickings are slim: Less than one job is available for every two people looking.

Not everyone at the unemployment office has been fired. For more than 28 years, Kakusa – he would not give his full name – worked at two Nagasaki cab companies. Six months ago, his boss scolded him for not bringing in more fares. He quit.

Dressed in suit pants and a grayish cardigan, 50-year-old Kakusa smoked a thin cigarette outside Hello Work while waiting to meet with a job counselor. To get by, he lives with his mother. He said he has savings, and he's also drawing from his mother's pension.

"I am not comfortable not having a job,'' he said. "I feel lonely, and I want to work. Doing my job I felt much satisfaction from performing. To lose your job is to lose something inside.''

Togawa said it is not unusual for older workers to quit their jobs. Relations with co-workers may become intolerable, or they may decide they need more money. He also said people quit when they sense their company is in financial trouble. Throughout Nagasaki Prefecture last year, 214 small and midsize firms went bankrupt – a 34 percent increase from three years ago.

Although some workers see the end coming and get out in time, others are not so lucky.

Toyoko Ideta, 52, lost her job last year when her sewing factory closed. She tried to find a job making women's clothes in Nagasaki, but discovered that other factories had shut down because of competition from China and other low-wage Asian countries. The one factory that did interview her said it wanted someone with more up-to-date skills. Ideta said she was offered alteration jobs, but the work isn't steady enough for the low pay – about $5.50 an hour.

Now, after prodding from one of her two grown daughters, she's taken a part-time job cleaning offices in the afternoon. She'll earn more than doing alterations, but she doesn't enjoy the work.

"It's a tough job for me physically,'' said Ideta, who divorced three years ago and lives alone.

"Psychologically, the jobless situation is hard for me. I feel insecure.''

It's not an unfounded fear.

Higher salary demands and the time and resources it would take a company to train older workers are what often keeps them unemployed longer, said Togawa of Hello Work. "It is clear older workers have more difficulty,'' he said.

One counselor at Hello Work, who asked not to be named, works with job seekers 55 and older. He said they can be divided into two groups. Workers 60 and older, he said, have reached Japan's retirement age and are collecting their national and company pensions.

"They are very optimistic and positive,'' the counselor said. "They only need to work for their joy or their health.''

But workers between 55 and 60 don't have pensions and "need to find a job to live.'' If they fail again and again to find a job, he said, they may become depressed and begin "to doubt what they have built through the rest of their life.''

As Togawa put it: "The door to being rehired is not very wide.''.