Key corporate labor unions filed their wage demands for the year with management Friday, kicking off the year’s “shunto” spring wage negotiations.
Their demands focus on maintaining regular pay hikes amid the country’s economic conditions and tough employment situation. Under a regular wage hike system, workers have so far been granted an automatic pay increase as their seniority advances.
Japan Wages Slump at Near-Record Pace of 6.1% as Bonuses Slide
Japan’s wages slumped at a near- record pace in December as employers pared workers’ bonuses, an indication that consumer spending is unlikely to drive the economic recovery.
Monthly wages including overtime and bonuses slipped 6.1 percent from a year earlier to 549,259 yen ($5,056), the Labor Ministry said today in Tokyo. Paychecks slumped an unprecedented 7 percent in June.
“You have to weigh the improvements in jobs against the plunge in wages,” [Azusa] Kato, an economist at BNP Paribas in Tokyo, said before the report was released. “As long as workers’ incomes keep plummeting like this, households won’t feel the benefits of this economic recovery firsthand.”
The decline in paychecks was the 19th in a row, extending the longest losing streak since 2003. Today’s report also showed that average monthly wages slid a record 3.9 percent to 315,164 yen last year, the lowest level since the government started tracking the data 1990.
Large businesses cut winter bonuses by 15 percent to 755,628 yen, the steepest drop since the survey began in 1959, a separate report by the Japan Business Federation showed last month. The money is typically paid in December and is often equivalent to several months of pay.
Uncertainty over language schools’ fate
The fate of up to 400 language students hangs in the balance with reports that their schools’ parent company has closed its Australian schools.
This week, eight Australian schools owned by GEOS in Japan closed but the fate of the company’s schools in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch remained uncertain, GEOS Auckland manager Stuart Binnie said.
The New Zealand schools are owned by GEOS in Japan but registered here. Between 300 and 400 students from up to 25 countries are enrolled in the three schools, which employ 20 to 30 staff.
If the schools closed, the students’ fees would be refunded or they would be placed in another English language school, he said. “I would guess there would be a lack of confidence in the brand name.”
An industry insider said the New Zealand GEOS schools would probably lose students rapidly “now that the reputation of GEOS among the international agents who supply the New Zealand schools with students has been compromised”.
The possible New Zealand closures follow the recent deregistration by the Qualifications Authority of two private Auckland training centres for non-compliance.
Authority records show the agency has long-running concerns with GEOS New Zealand’s financial management, although it was noted in the last audit at the end of 2008 that the company had made progress addressing the concerns.
According to the company’s annual financial statement, the New Zealand branch of GEOS lost almost $900,000 in 2008 after making a profit of nearly $1.2 million in 2007.
English New Zealand chairman Rob McKay said that, even if the New Zealand schools did not close, their reputation would be damaged. GEOS was one of New Zealand’s biggest private schools teaching English to foreign students.
Ad FeedbackGEOS’ head office in Tokyo said its schools outside Australia would operate as usual, but admitted the closures might affect its reputation and student numbers.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3286808/Uncertainty-over-language-schools-fate
New visa rule on insurance to be deleted
Aim is to ease foreigners’ concerns
The Immigration Bureau is planning to change a new guideline for foreign residents to ease concerns that those without social insurance will be forced to choose between losing their visa and entering the insurance system, a bureau official said Monday.
But some foreigners warn the move won’t be enough to entirely free them of the risk of being forced to enter the insurance system.
The wording of the guideline, which is to be enforced April 1, currently stipulates that foreign residents must present their health insurance card when reporting changes to or renewing their residential status. It is the last of the guideline’s eight items.
“The bureau will delete item No. 8 by the end of March, and ‘lightly mention’ the need to present a health insurance card in the introductory passage of the guideline,” Immigration Bureau spokesman Yoshikazu Iimura told The Japan Times. “The wording will be in a manner to eliminate foreign residents’ concerns that their visas won’t be renewed if they don’t have insurance.”
The bureau will try to persuade foreigners who don’t have the card to enter the social insurance system by giving out brochures, but not having the insurance won’t affect the bureau’s decision whether to grant a visa, he said.
English language schools under threat of closure
The Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) says it will protect the 2,300 students affected by the possible closure of a number of English language schools across Australia.
Nine companies associated with GEOS, which operates the schools in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, and Brisbane, went into voluntary administration late last week.
The authority discovered that directors of GEOS have been diverting revenue from its Melbourne business, to support the operations of its other companies both in Australia and overseas.
A decision is expected to be made today on the schools’ future and Lynn Glover, the director of the VRQA, says the students and 400 staff will be looked after.
“If a decision is made by the administrators for the college to close, all overseas students will be protected by the tuition insurance scheme,” she said.
“This will mean that students will be placed in suitable alternative courses, here in Melbourne, at no additional cost and the VRQA will be supporting that process.”
Eight English schools won’t reopen: E&Y
The voluntary administrators of eight English language schools say that the schools will not reopen because of the financial situation.
Justin Walsh and Adam Nikitins of Ernst & Young say they are working with the federal department of education and state government departments to find arrangements for the 2300 international students.
The administrators were continuing to investigate the nine companies operating under the GEOS name and hope to provide a further update on Wednesday, Ernst & Young said in a statement on Monday.
“We’ve very quickly worked through the options to keep the schools open, but were unable to do so,” Mr Walsh said.
“That included speaking with the Japanese parent.”
GEOS, which had schools in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Cairns, Gold Coast, Perth and Brisbane, is the local subsidiary of the Tokyo-based language teaching company of the same name.
“Funds weren’t forthcoming” from GEOS, Mr Walsh said.
GEOS’s media relations manager was not immediately available for comment.
The students, from 20 different countries including Brazil, Colombia, South Korea and Turkey, and 390 employees were being informed at meetings on Monday afternoon.
“We’re working with federal government to minimise the impact on the students,” Mr Walsh said.
Collapsed GEOS language schools will not re-open as debts hit $10 million
Eight collapsed language schools owned by the Japanese-based GEO Group will remain shut, leaving the places of 2,300 students up in the air and 390 employees out of work.
Administrators Justin Walsh and Adam Nikitins of Ernst & Young said in a brief statement released yesterday that the financial position of the schools, which were shut down last week, was such that they could not continue to trade.
“We are continuing to investigate the financial affairs of the companies and will report to key stakeholders in due course,” the pair said.
Total debts owed to students and other creditors could be as high as $10 million, according to media reports.
The colleges are located in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Cairns, with the largest number of students based in Melbourne (530 students) and Sydney (500 students).
Australia’s international student system contains consumer provision protections which means students at a collapsed school will be given places at other institutions.
The administrators said they will now work with “the Federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and relevant state government departments in relation to alternative arrangements for students”.
“Government agencies will also be holding information meetings for affected students in relation to consumer protection and alternative arrangements from Wednesday this week.”
GEOS Oceania is part of the GEOS Group, which operates language schools in North America, Europe, Singapore, South Africa, Korea and New Zealand.
Most of the schools in Australia have been running since the 1990s, while the Brisbane campus was established in 1987.
GEOS, which stands for Global Education Opportunities and Services, was founded in Japan in 1973 by Tsuneo Kusunoki.
The company’s global expansion has been wound back somewhat in the last few years, with 10% of the company’s Japanese schools shut down in 2007 and centres in Vancouver and London closed in 2008.
Troubles at the GEOS college in Melbourne appear to have been mounting in recent months. According to The Age, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority had become concerned about GEOS following a financial audit.
The collapses are another blow to Australia’s beleaguered international education system, which has seen a string of high-profiled failures in the last 12 months.
Sterling College and Melbourne International College went under in July, while four schools – Meridian International School, Meridian International Hotel School, International Design School and International College of Creative Arts – with a total of 13 campuses, collapsed in November.
Collapsed college owes students $10m
THE collapsed GEOS English language college network was permanently shut yesterday after administrators discovered the Japanese owners had left it with no money to keep going.
Students and staff are owed more than $10 million in pre-paid fees and entitlements.
Worst-hit are about 1000 students who had paid GEOS for homestay accommodation and who could now face eviction.
GEOS student Joachim Adam from Germany has already been told by his landlady in Melbourne to immediately pay his weekly rent of $220 dollars or leave, even though he has already paid all his rent to GEOS.
“I must pay by this evening or I must go,” he said.
Administrator Justin Walsh of Ernst and Young said remaining funds “are vastly insufficient to continue trading”. GEOS was put into administration by its Japanese parent on Friday.
The Australian understands students, landlords and agents could be owed about $10 million, while the entitlements of the nearly 400 staff also run into the millions.
Student fees are protected under an assurance scheme run by peak body English Australia in which students are entitled to be placed with other colleges.
English Australia said it was confident of being able to place all students, but some are already regretting they chose to study in Australia.
Mario Galindo, a 39-year-old university tutor from Colombia, paid almost $7000 for a ten-month course to improve his English. He has been left stranded with two months tuition owed.
“I thought this was a serious country . . . but now I think it was a mistake,” Mr Galindo said.
Pina Vigo of West Preston in Melbourne was yesterday showing her newly arrived nephew, Filippo Zilio, from Italy, where his GEOS college was, only to find it closed. Mr Zilio, 19 had paid for a month’s study.
“It stinks,” Ms Vigo said. “How can they do this to the students? How can the government not know?”
GEOS has schools in NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia.
Corporate pension age ‘to rise to 65’
The government will raise the eligibility age for a corporate, defined contribution pension plan from the current 60 to 65, chiefly in response to an increase in the number of employees working past the standard retirement age of 60, sources said.
Should the eligibility age be raised for the plan–a Japanese version of the U.S. 401K corporate pension plan–the accumulation period for financial contributions would be extended, thereby increasing the amount that pensioners could receive during retirement.
To raise the eligibility age, the government will submit a bill to revise the Defined Contribution Pension Law during the ongoing ordinary Diet session, according to the sources.
There has been an increase in companies that employ workers past 60, by extending the retirement age ceiling or rehiring retired employees.
The trend is attributable to the fiscal 2006 enactment of the revised Older Persons’ Employment Stabilization Law, which requires companies to extend, in stages, the employment age of workers up to 65.
However, under the current corporate pension plan, employees who turn 60 must leave the plan. This has prompted calls to raise the eligibility age for making financial contributions to 65.
The government plans to implement the age hike in April 2012. The qualified retirement annuity system, which has been adopted mainly by small and midsize companies, is to be abolished at the end of March the same year, making it necessary to improve the corporate pension plan to accept those workers covered by the system.
The revised plan also will make it possible for workers themselves to financially contribute to the plan. Under the current system, only companies can contribute.
Foreigners win ¥17 million for trainee abuses
The Kumamoto District Court awarded more than ¥17 million in damages Friday to four Chinese interns who were forced to work long hours for low wages in Kumamoto Prefecture.
The court ordered that the union Plaspa Apparel, which arranged the trainee work for the four, to pay ¥4.4 million and that the actual employer, a sewing agency, pay ¥12.8 million in unpaid wages.
It is the first ruling that held a job broker for foreign trainees liable for their hardships, according to lawyers representing the four interns.
The four female Chinese trainees, aged 22 to 25, engaged in sewing from early morning to late evening with only two or three days off a month after arriving in Japan in 2006, according to the court.