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Japanese women stand low on corporate ladder 25 yrs after law change

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Twenty five years have passed since the Equal Employment Opportunity Law for Men and Women was enacted to fight gender inequality at the workplace. By this time, people might think that a horde of college-educated women are calling the shots as corporate managers. But the latest Kyodo News survey shows that is hardly the case.

Of Japan’s 110 major corporations polled, 107 said it is important to use women’s talents, but women who are small section heads account for an average of a mere 5.4 percent of the total number of those holding that title. Of the total number of managers heading larger departments, women made up 2.5 percent. The figure goes down further to 1.7 percent for women corporate executives. In contrast, around 40 percent of corporate managers are women in other advanced countries, such as the United States and Germany.

The Japanese government has set a goal of boosting the percentage of women in managerial or other leadership positions to 30 percent by 2020, but Japanese companies appear to be less enthusiastic about the idea. Asked to give the percentages of women they want to see in managerial positions, the corporate respondents said an average of 18.6 percent for section chiefs, 15.4 percent for department heads and 14.4 percent for executives.

Still, out of this year’s new hires holding fast-track positions for managerial posts, an average of 27.7 percent were women.

Companies do want to employ more women because they are in desperate need of highly skilled workers because the country’s working population is shrinking. But the poll results suggest that there is still a widespread notion that business management is a man’s job. On the other hand, a significant number of firms want female workers to do more to improve the fortunes of employers.

Asked what they want out of female employees, 27 firms said they want women to reform their companies, and 22 said they hope to see female workers make more use of traits unique to women. Of the companies that find female employees somewhat wanting, 28 said women should acquire a broader perspective, 13 said women should be more flexible and 12 said they do not want them to quit early.

Commenting on the poll results, Professor Takashi Kashima, a gender studies expert at Jissen Women’s University, argues that there is a misconception among companies that women do not possess a broad perspective and are less flexible compared with their male colleagues. ”If they really want female workers to engineer reform, corporate managers should do more to give women their say,” he said.

Following the enforcement of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law in April 1986, further legislative reform and in-house changes at companies have done a lot to put men and women on a more equal footing. Still, women remain quite disadvantaged when it comes to obtaining secure employment.

Nonregular workers, who enjoy little job security, have become a serious social issue and male temps sacked by manufacturers have drawn much public attention over the past several years. Government statistics show, however, that some 70 percent of nonregular workers are women and the percentage has remained more or less the same for more than 20 years. Asked why many of their female employees are nonregular workers, 72 firms said women have difficulty holding down jobs as regular staff for a long period of time because they need to raise children. A total of 59 said the odds are against women seeking regular employment if they have quit their jobs in the past.

Many corporate respondents also said it is quite rare for temporary workers, who work as office clerks, an occupation usually associated with women, to become regular employees. Those who have gained regular work status tend to be workers who possess specialized skills and have worked full time at given companies for several years.

The situation for working women appears to be improving as public concern has grown recently about the need to help women keep their jobs while starting a family. Against this backdrop, 75 percent of the corporate respondents said they are implementing some measures to help regular female workers with children. Also, 65 percent have instituted a system that grants nonregular female staff regular employee status.

The poll results amply demonstrate that corporate managers are aware that they are no longer in a position to rely solely on male employees, says Jissen Women’s University’s Kashima. ”The survey shows that a large proportion of companies deem it important to utilize the talents of women on the grounds of gender equality, and that says much about the growth over the past quarter of a century of public understanding about the ideals upheld by the Equal Employment Opportunity Law,” he said. Still, much has to be done to promote the career advancement of women and make it easier for them to stay in the workforce to utilize their potential, Kashima added.

The Kyodo poll was conducted on top managers or executives in charge of employment matters at 110 companies between late July and early August.

http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=519976

Japan looks for answers as China surges past

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Japan’s GDP slump, and news that China’s economy is now bigger, will intensify the search for answers on turning around the economy.

To some, the answer lies offshore. Not in the traditional sense of exporting cars and televisions, but in bringing in new workers from Japan’s rapidly developing neighbours.

The Japanese are good at finding reasons why immigration won’t work, pointing to racial disharmony, problems with integration and culture shock among residents and immigrants. This public view is broadly reflected in government policy.

However, The Australian spoke this week to Hirohiko Nakamura, one of a minority of Japanese politicians who believe in dramatically increasing immigration.

Mr Nakamura, who hails from the conservative leaning Liberal Democratic Party, said Japan’s population was on track to drop from 127 million to just 90 million in the next 45 years, by which time almost 40 per cent would be aged over 65.

“We are already in a state of absolute manpower shortage. It is inevitable that we must take in immigrants to save such a critical situation,” he said.

“We should move towards a 21st-century Japan with a global and multicultural society.”

He believes immigration from Asia would be beneficial throughout the economy, not just in specific sectors. “What’s needed first for Japanese economic growth is securing an unparalleled amount of new labour. The Japanese youth need to learn from the youth of other parts of Asia about diligence and the motivation to live a wealthy life,” he said.

These are strong words in Japan where, according to Mr Nakamura, the many opponents of immigration fall into two camps: believers in Japan’s racial “purity”, and those with more basic concerns about integrating newcomers and perhaps safeguarding their own jobs.

Through the Diet (parliament) Members League to Promote the International Exchange of Human Resources, Mr Nakamura and about 80 other MPs are trying to shift attitudes to immigration.

With a low birth rate and a stalled economy plagued by deflation, immigration is becoming an economic issue as well as a social one.

Since assuming office in June, Prime Minister Naoto Kan has watched as his options for reviving the economy have disappeared.

Japan’s burgeoning public sector debt, and Mr Kan’s pledge for fiscal consolidation, probably rules out another large Keynesian stimulus package. Rates have been at near zero levels since the global financial crisis, but companies remain reluctant to borrow to expand capacity. And now the strong yen is reducing export earnings, applying a further brake on the economy, which grew by a dismal 0.4 per cent in the June quarter, compared to 4.4 per cent in the previous quarter.

Despite the economic gloom, the argument in Japan is not about how fast to grow the population, as in Australia, but whether to grow at all. The former head of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, Sakanaka Hidenori, summed up the dilemma in a 2007 essay in which he says Japan must choose between big and small options.

The small option, he says, involves accepting a steep population decline to perhaps 80 million. The trade off for a peaceful and less environmentally damaging lifestyle would be accepting higher taxes and lower benefits.

Mr Hidenori is honest enough to concede that emotionally he favours the small option, but he argues Japan won’t be given the choice. An influx of immigration from China and other rapidly expanding Asian neighbours would prove difficult to control if Japan puts up the drawbridge, he says.

Implementing the big option, though, will not be easy. “The country would need to accept over 20 million immigrants during the next 50 years. Before welcoming such an unprecedented influx, Japan would need to build a national consensus that new arrivals would be welcomed as friends and contributors to Japanese society,” he says. He admits there would be social, environmental and energy costs, but concludes the tide of globalisation is irresistible.

To address labour shortages, Japan has introduced a short-term internship program for unskilled labourers and a scheme to attract foreign nurses. However, both have significant flaws. Under the first program, some trainees have been ruthlessly exploited and effectively worked to death, while the insistence on having nurses pass an arcane and complicated Japanese exam has crippled the effectiveness of the second.

Mr Nakamura said the failures of such schemes were often unjustly blamed on the workers, making his task even harder.

The process of integrating Japan’s Korean community — its most established migrant group — has also been difficult. The Korean-Japanese community, who were originally brought to Japan as forced labourers, cannot vote and must register as aliens unless they become naturalised Japanese, a process some resist because it involves relinquishing their Korean citizenship.

Moves to reintegrate Japan’s South American diaspora to provide extra factory workers have been similarly difficult, so perhaps a fresh approach is needed.

While the government resists meaningful change, cold economic reality may force its hand. Japan remains proud of its economic successes. Its relegation by China this week was too sensitive for some Japanese newspapers to report; several reported only a dry summary of the GDP numbers with scant reference to being usurped by the dragon on their doorstep. Many Japanese won’t be prepared to settle for the economic irrelevance of Hidenori’s small option, and using economic arguments to change people’s views might prove easier than expected.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/japan-looks-for-answers-as-china-surges-past/story-e6frg90o-1225907498533

Drop in number of Japan’s foreign workers amid economic crisis

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Brazilian community hard hit as jobs shrink and Japanese compete for vacancies

The samba vibes that filled the streets of Kawasaki City in July were suitably festive, but their feverish beat failed to conceal the fact that Japan’s Brazilian community – the third-largest group of foreigners after the Chinese and Koreans – has been hard hit by the economic crisis. The number of immigrants fell by 1.4% in 2009 to 2.2 million, for the first time since 1961. The drop was mainly due to the departure of Brazilians. In one year their number fell by 14.4%, down to 267,450.

Japan’s Brazilian community largely consists of poorly qualified workers and their families, packed into major industrial centres. Just over half of them are factory workers compared with 39% for immigrants as a whole, essentially on short-term contracts.

Most are nikkeijin, descendants of Japanese who moved to South America after 1908. They came to Japan when the law on immigration changed in 1989, allowing them to obtain a visa even without specific qualifications. This was intended to compensate for the decline in the active population that started in the 1980s. With less than 4,000 before 1990 their number exceeded 310,000 by the end of 2007.

When the crisis struck Japan in autumn 2008, firms started by laying off the nikkeijin. Unemployment in the group rocketed to 40%, against 5% before the crash. In the Hello Work job centres the sudden influx of so many unemployed, with few qualifications and a shaky grasp of the language, caused panic. The government even set up a scheme to help them return home, and some 11,300 nikkeijin took advantage of the deal.

The situation seems more stable now. In Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture, home to Suzuki and Yamaha works, “the rate of unemployment has returned to traditional levels”, according to the local branch of the Foundation for International Exchanges (HICE). But it notes that the number of Brazilians has fallen from more than 20,000 18 months ago to 14,655 in June. No one is in any hurry to replace them. The five-year plan for immigration control, published in March, suggests a review of the conditions for granting visas to nikkeijin.

The crisis has brought “a deep realisation of the social and economic costs that come with accepting foreign workers”, writes Masahiko Yamada, minister of labour. The downturn has rekindled debate on immigration, despite the fact that the working population could decline to 55.8 million by 2030, as against 66.6 million in 2006. This would further dent the welfare budget, already running at a loss.

In 10 years the number of immigrants has increased by 40%, but they still only account for 1.7% of the population as a whole. Nor is there anything to suggest they will substantially increase. Existing policies aim to attract highly qualified workers and students suitable for top university courses – preferably from Asia to sustain trade in the already booming region.

Immigration is expected to compensate for real needs identified by the authorities. Economic partnerships agreed with the Philippines and Indonesia before the crisis provide for the arrival of dozens of medical orderlies to make up for staff shortages in hospitals. But the deals are already in doubt, because the crisis is encouraging Japanese to take such jobs.

All this suggests that before shipping in foreigners, Japan should encourage those with untapped abilities – young people, women and senior citizens – to enter the job market. Yamada believes that measures along these lines should stabilise the active population for the coming 10 years.

Japan is still reluctant to open its borders. Outsiders still have a negative image in a country that sees itself as ethnically homogeneous.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/03/japan-recession-foreign-workforce-decline

Interac banned from Osaka prefectural projects

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Cross posted from the General Union.
Let’s all work together for ALTs to be directly hired.
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Interac has been found guilty of unfair labour practices by the Osaka Prefectural Labour Commission in July 2010 for refusing to hold collective bargaining with the General Union (full story here).

Osaka prefectural ordinances prevent companies found in violation of Trade Union Law from bidding on public projects. The General Union, along with allied unions from Osaka Union Network and Osaka Zenrokyo have submitted demands to the Governor of Osaka Prefecture, Toru Hashimoto, that Prefectural ordinances be enforced.

As a result, Osaka Prefecture has now informed all divisions of the prefectural government, including the Osaka Prefectural Board of Education, that they may no longer enter into contracts with Interac. Furthermore, Osaka Prefecture has summoned Interac to explain the situation, placing further pressure on the company to obey the Trade Union Law and negotiate.

The union’s victory at the Labour Commission and its subsequent economic impact on Interac will go along way in making sure that not only Interac, but other employers trying to evade their legal obligations, negotiate with the union in the future.

Govt must improve foreign intern program

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The revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law took effect in July, enhancing legal protection for foreign interns participating in a government-authorized training program.

However, some observers say the revision of the law merely puts off dealing with the real problems. The program is said to be occupational training in name only, with some going so far as to call it de facto slave labor.

It remains to be seen if the revisions will solve this issue. If the situation does not change, we believe it is meaningless to continue the program.

The current program was established in 1989 to provide foreign nationals with opportunities to learn advanced technology and skills in Japan, thereby becoming forces for development in their own countries.

It has accepted 50,000 to 70,000 young foreign nationals every year for training that can continue up to three years, in fields such as textiles, machinery, metal, food, construction, agriculture and fishing. Over 80 percent of the trainees are Chinese nationals.

Brutal hours, paltry wages

The program has two ways of accepting foreign interns: Companies bring over employees of their own subsidiaries in foreign countries, or organizations of small and midsize firms or agricultural groups accept interns and send them to member companies or farms for training. The overwhelming majority of problems occur in the latter segment.

Many irregularities in the program were pointed out during Diet deliberations to revise the law, such as foreign trainees working long hours and being paid below-minimum wages of about 300 yen per hour. Some trainees reportedly cannot quit the program midway through because the agencies in their countries that sent them to Japan will demand large penalty charges.

A majority of trainees are said to be unskilled laborers who only want to make money in this country.

The 31-year-old Chinese intern who died suddenly in 2008 while working at a metal plating company in Ibaraki Prefecture is a typical case. He was allegedly forced to work for low pay and to put in 100 to 150 hours of overtime every month. He was allowed only two days off per month.

A labor standards inspection office in the prefecture intends to recognize his death as the result of overwork.

In 2008, labor offices around the country instructed companies to improve labor conditions for foreign trainees in a total of 2,612 cases.

The reality is far from the program’s ideal of contributing to the international community. It seems industries that cannot hire Japanese workers have been taking advantage of it to quietly use foreign labor.

Wishful thinking

The revised law stipulates that the Labor Standards Law and the Minimum Wage Law apply to foreign trainees from their first year in the program; under the old law, they applied only from the second year. The revised law also requires industrial organizations to strengthen their instruction and supervision of member companies that accept foreign interns.

However, some of the companies using foreign interns have been ignoring labor-related regulations. Many industrial organizations and their member companies are like fraternities–can we really expect these organizations to strictly supervise their members?

Many trainees have to go home because the companies they work for suddenly go bankrupt. At the very least, the revised law should have included a measure to prohibit struggling companies from accepting interns.

The government-authorized program has become a legal loophole for hiring unskilled foreign laborers. The government must move forward with discussions on how this country should accept foreign workers in the future.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/20100721TDY02T01.htm

Meager pay keeps ranks of instructors in doldrums

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It may not be well-known, but [Japanese language instruction] has also been on the rise, with more people than ever trying to learn [the language]. But the number of Japanese who teach nonnative speakers isn’t growing, partly due to lack of interest among academic circles and the low pay at private language schools that derives in part from restrictions on management.

Some advocates stress the need to get the numbers up, as Japan is aging rapidly and reliance on an immigrant workforce is going to grow, thus it is important that newcomers be conversant in the language.

According to the education ministry, foreigners in the country studying Japanese increased to 170,858 in fiscal 2009 from 135,146 in fiscal 2003.

The number of Japanese-language teachers, excluding volunteers, dropped from 14,047 to 13,437 over the same period.

The trend is particularly noticeable at the nation’s universities. Foreign students studying Japanese at such institutions rose to 53,546 in fiscal 2009 from 34,880 four years earlier. Despite the jump, the number of teachers stayed almost unchanged, 4,250 last year versus 4,240 in fiscal 2003.

Satoshi Miyazaki, a professor at the graduate school of Japanese applied linguistics at Waseda University, said it is unfortunate teacher ranks are not growing. They should be boosted and put in positions of responsibility to enable a long-term commitment, otherwise, for example, universities would have a hard time improving their programs for international students.

The slow growth in Japanese teachers is shared by private language academies. Such commercial entities had 5,947 teachers and 50,479 students in fiscal 2003, compared with 5,959 teachers and 53,047 students in fiscal 2009.

“One reason for the lack of Japanese teachers is because it’s not a well-paid job,” said Nobuo Suzuki, who manages Arc Academy, a Japanese-language school with several branches in the Tokyo and Kansai areas.

Suzuki explained that about 80 percent of his teachers work part time and most are women.

The hourly wage is about ¥1,700 to ¥1,800 for new part-time teachers, who can only teach around three hours a week when they start out. Their hours can go up every three months and the part-time wage can rise to about ¥2,500.

An experienced teacher makes on average ¥7,000 to ¥8,000 a day.

Suzuki said full-time teachers with 10 years of experience earn about ¥4 million a year.

The meager pay means few young people, especially men, want to become Japanese-language teachers, people in the field say.

Yumiko Furukawa, a full-time teacher at Arc Academy who has been in the game for four years, said the high turnover rate — teachers last an average of only two years — is mainly because of wages.

“It is quite difficult to support an entire household by teaching Japanese, but there are many who love teaching Japanese, and I think Japanese-language teaching is supported by their passion,” said Furukawa, 41, whose husband also works so she doesn’t have to rely on just her wages.

[Makoto Murakami, head of the editorial department at the monthly magazine Gekkan Nihongo (Monthly Japanese)] Murakami likened Japanese-language teachers to nurses and caregivers.

“The number of people who will need caregivers will increase sharply, but the number of caregivers doesn’t grow because the job conditions aren’t very good,” and if the situation doesn’t change there won’t be enough Japanese teachers, even though the number of foreigners is likely to keep increasing, Murakami said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100820f3.html

A less-than-desirable ALTernative

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An increasing number of primary schools are using assistant language teachers to teach English to children ahead of new regulations [making English education at primary schools compulsory] that go into effect in spring.

However, most of these ALTs are supplied by third-party businesses, a fact that can lead to less-than-desirable situations in class.

In Kashiwa, public schools do not directly employ foreign teachers, instead contracting third parties to supply them. One reason for this is cost-cutting.

However, when using such ALTs, teachers are not permitted to directly instruct their assistants.

In April, a teacher asked an ALT to place cards on the blackboard. Though on the surface this may seem a harmless request, the Chiba Labor Bureau demanded the school instruct its teachers to not ask anything of the ALTs, as it would be considered an order, and making the use of a third-party appear as mere camouflage.

Following the order, the school opted for the safest approach: banning all conversation between teachers and ALTs during class.

“This was the best way for us to give our children the opportunity to hear and use natural English,” said one Kashiwa City Board of Education official. The city says it plans to improve the situation after the next school year.

Kashiwa is not alone: Many local governments use third-party ALTs. Other local labor bureaus, too, have cited problems regarding the system.

Starting next spring, English will be compulsory for fifth- and sixth-graders, though they will not be graded on their performance.

The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry recommends that schools use ALTs whose mother tongue is English so students can improve their communication skills by familiarizing themselves with natural English.

Few schoolteachers are considered proficient in English, a situation that has increased the desire for native ALTs.

Throughout the country, local education boards are working hard to secure a sufficient number of ALTs.

A spokesperson for one intermediary said: “We receive requests for ALTs, but the fact is, sometimes we have to turn the request down because we don’t have enough.”

Compounding the situation is the fact that ALTs are not required to have teaching experience or qualifications, meaning the quality of ALT depends entirely on the company through which they are contracted. And few ALTs are proficient in Japanese.

Tokyo’s Adachi Ward Board of Education stopped using ALTs at primary schools last school year, but began employing Japanese teachers who speak fluent English.

“Even if [an ALT] is a native speaker, it’s difficult to teach if they can’t communicate. We can’t get enough ALTs who are good at Japanese,” one board official said.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/T100815001255.htm

Deaths show low-income earners most vulnerable to savage heat of Japanese summer

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One 48-year-old man, who was once homeless but had begun working, died of what is thought to be heat stroke on July 26 at his un-air conditioned Tokyo apartment. On Aug. 15 a 76-year-old man in Saitama, north-west of Tokyo, died of heatstroke because he couldn’t afford the electricity to run his air conditioner.

“People receiving some form of social welfare, even though it’s not enough, do have case workers or others to follow up on them. But low-income earners trying to survive on their own don’t have that, and fall through the cracks of heat wave countermeasures,” says one expert.

On July 23, the third day of a savage Tokyo heat wave, a man stumbled back to the office of his cleaning company after finishing a job close to Ikebukuro Station. He was scheduled to work again the next day, but Reijiro Miyamoto, director of the company that had a cleaning contract with Toshima Ward, told him not to come in. Miyamoto thought the man ought to have the weekend off. However, the man did not return to work on Monday.

Behind this and other heat stroke deaths among low-income earners is the fact that there are many households living below the “minimum cost of living” set as the standard for welfare payments. Based on the 2007 National Livelihood Survey, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare estimated that there are some 1.08 million households receiving social assistance payments. However, the number of households living on incomes lower than those welfare payments had risen to a startling 5.97 million.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100821p2a00m0na024000c.html

Nissan to give temps some stability

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Nissan Motor Co. will forgo using job-placement agencies and start directly hiring all temporary nonengineering staff in phases beginning in October in an apparent effort to provide employment stability to workers in line with a labor office request, company officials said Wednesday.

Nissan’s move may spur other companies to rethink their hiring practices, analysts say, although Toyota and Honda say they have no current plans to follow suit.

Employees hired directly are given more job security than those hired via placement agencies and are eligible for more benefits.

Last year, the Tokyo Labor Bureau demanded that the carmaker improve its employment practice for workers sent by staffing agencies.

Nissan will no longer receive nonengineering workers from those agencies and will change the status of several hundred to direct employment if they wish.

It will offer new six-month contracts that would be extended up to two years and 11 months, as judicial precedents make it difficult to terminate contracts with employees hired for three years or longer, they said.

Acting on a complaint filed by two temps who demanded that Nissan hire them directly, the labor bureau told the company in May last year to provide its staff more job security.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20100819a3.html

Business English revives schools

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The recent corporate trend of making English the “official language” within companies has given a tailwind to the formerly faltering English language school business.

As a number of companies aim to establish or maintain a global presence, English language schools are working to develop educational programs more practical than those offered by their rivals for businesspeople who need to use English at work.

Such a move came after companies, including online shopping mall operator Rakuten, Inc. and Fast Retailing Co., the operator of casual clothing chain Uniqlo, required their employees to use English as their official in-house language.

The English education-related industry has striven to capitalize on what it views as a golden opportunity.

During the April-June period, Berlitz Japan, Inc., an operator of foreign language schools, saw the number of its corporate customers and individual regular students who are company employees jump 50 percent from a year earlier. Its summer short program also has attracted about 2-1/2 times as many students as in the previous year.

Another English school operator, Gaba Corp., enjoyed a similar boost, with corporate contracts up 12 percent year on year in the first half of 2010.

According to private research firm Yano Research Institute, the market for foreign language business shrank about 5.8 percent to 502.6 billion yen in fiscal 2009, forcing Geos Corp., a major industry player, to file for bankruptcy.

With the economy recovering, however, the nation’s corporate environment has changed. With a growing number of companies aiming to expand their overseas operations, particularity in Asia, they are racing to secure people with a good command of English.

Panasonic Corp. is set to hire about 80 percent of its new employees who are fresh out of school for next fiscal year overseas. Half of the 600 people that Fast Retailing plans to employ in fiscal 2011 are also expected to be non-Japanese. Such moves have boosted the popularity of business English programs.

A 35-year-old company employee who studies at an English language school in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, said, “As we’ve come to communicate with overseas clients through e-mail and video conferences on a daily basis, I’m worried that I might slow down business operations because of my poor English.”

“Companies like Rakuten could fuel ‘English fever,'” a source familiar with the industry said.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T100818004161.htm