Universities in Japan force most of their foreign instructors to play an unnerving version of musical chairs. Every year the music starts and instructors with expiring contracts scramble for an opening at a new school. University administrators force teachers to play “musical jobs” by offering limited-term contracts.
The game has lots of players ? many with permanent residence and families ? searching for a vacant chair. There are about 5,700 foreign instructors working full-time at Japanese universities, the vast majority on limited-term contracts.
Contract conditions for foreign instructors at Japanese universities vary widely. Some offer bonuses, housing, private offices and research allowances, while others don’t. However, contracts share certain common features.
Contract instructors typically teach almost twice as many classes as the tenured faculty. Whereas tenured professors usually teach six or seven 90-minute classes a week, instructors on contracts usually teach eight to 10 classes, with 12 or 14 not unheard of. The number of possible contract renewals is also capped, most commonly at three years. Finally, contract jobs often come with a starting age limit of 35 or 40. The practice of mentioning age limits on job ads has now been banned, but with date of birth written on the resume, de facto limits are certainly still imposed.
85,000 temp jobs could go by March
Labor ministry estimate surges 55,000; work offers withdrawn from students up 130%
The number is up around 55,000 from the previous estimate, which was based on a survey conducted in November by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
The number of people who have lost or will lose their housing as a result of job losses between October and March is estimated to reach 2,157.
Of those who have lost their jobs in the period and for whom information is available, 88.2 percent have yet to secure new positions.
Temporary workers are in constant fear of losing both their jobs and their homes.
Number of temp workers hits record high of 3.84 million in Japan
The number of temporary dispatch workers in Japan has hit a record high of about 3.84 million people, a report released Friday by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has shown.
The ministry’s fiscal 2007 report on temporary work services found that there were 741,644 temporary workers on long or short-term contracts, and 2,795,999 registered for short-term jobs, including day workers. Another 303,192 were designated for “specified dispatching,” which includes specialist jobs.
The average fee paid by client companies to job agencies for a general dispatch worker on an eight-hour shift was 14,032 yen, down 9.9 percent from the previous year. The average amount the workers received fell 9.8 percent to 9,534 yen. For specified dispatch workers, average wages were 13,044 yen — down 7.9 percent.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081227p2a00m0na006000c.html
85,000 non-regular employees to lose work during second half of fiscal 2008
The number of non-regular employees to have their employment terminated during the current half of the financial year is expected to surpass 85,000, a government survey has found.
The figure, announced by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare on Friday, is about 2.8 times higher than the figure of 30,067 that was announced on Nov. 28 after an initial survey.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081226p2a00m0na013000c.html
Temps a threatened species as job cuts bite
One of the biggest [problems that temp workers face] is what experts have dubbed “The Year 2009 Problem.”
The three-year contracts many temps signed in 2006 will run out next year.
After media reports exposed the unfair hiring practices of such major manufacturers as Panasonic Corp. and Canon Inc., many workers signed three-year contracts in 2006.
Under normal contracting practices, a smaller contractor independently manufactures parts for larger manufacturers. But by disguising the terms of their contracting, major manufacturers were avoiding paying higher salaries and administrative costs by having temps work directly at their facilities.
Although manufacturers are obliged to directly employ temp workers after three years, it is unlikely they will hire them as full-timers to avoid a payroll increase.
The current massive layoffs, however, are taking place even before the contracts run out due to the economic downturn triggered by the global financial crisis.
Hard times for foreign workers
[The] bad economy is hitting the country’s foreign workers particularly hard, with nongovernmental organization volunteers warning that many who have been laid off face not only losing their homes and access to education in their mother tongue, but also that emergency food rations are now being distributed to the most desperate cases.
“Of the nearly 300 people who attend my church, between 30 and 40 of them have already lost their jobs, and I expect more will soon be laid off as companies choose not to renew their contracts. Many of those who have lost their jobs have no place to live or get through the winter,” said Laelso Santos, pastor at a church in Karia, Aichi Prefecture, and the head of Maos Amigas, an NGO assisting foreign workers and their families.
“Of course, Japanese workers who get laid off are suffering as well. But unlike foreign workers, most Japanese have friends and relatives they can turn to for immediate financial help, at least enough to ensure they have enough to eat,” Santos said. “(The foreign workers) desperately need financial help for their daily lives now, not for things like language assistance.”
Plan to teach English classes in English prompts worries among educators in Japan
New high school curriculum guidelines calling for English lessons to be taught in English have sparked worries among teachers in Japan, with some doubting that teachers and students will be able to handle the classes.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has explained that “teachers should first display an attitude of actively using English themselves,” in order to boost English conversation ability.
However, concerns have been raised over large disparities in both teachers’ English ability and students’ level of understanding — at some schools there are reportedly students who can’t tell the difference between the letters “b” and “d.” In addition, university entrance exams are likely to remain unchanged, raising questions from educators about how effective the move will be.
“The Education Ministry doesn’t understand the teaching scene,” one English teacher at a Chiba prefectural high school says with a forced smile. “Teaching lessons in English would be impossible.”
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081224p2a00m0na002000c.html
Tax bureau accused of breaking labor law over management of contracted workers
The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau has come under attack for allegedly giving orders to contract employees at its dormitories who are not directly under its control — an act that allegedly constitutes disguised contract labor, which is prohibited under the Employment Security Law.
The custodians of the bureau’s 27 dormitories for single employees in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Yamanashi prefectures formed a labor union in late November and have demanded the bureau and the private companies employing them improve their working conditions. Some of the companies have reportedly complied with their request.
Technically, the custodians are supposed to work under the instructions of their employers — the four private companies — and not under the direct instructions of the Tokyo tax bureau.
However, several custodians have disclosed that they mostly get instructions from the tax bureau and virtually no instructions from the companies that employ them.
“The tax bureau gives us such minute instructions as when to go on patrols, how to do the cleaning, as well as on how to handle the moving-in and moving-out of dorm residents on weekends and fire drills,” said a custodian in his 60s.
A representative from the Tokyo tax bureau was defensive about the matter.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081224p2a00m0na005000c.html
How does the employment insurance system work?
Question: About how much are the unemployment benefit payments?
Answer: The amount of compensation one can get through the employment insurance system depends on several factors. First, the system looks at a person’s income, minus bonuses and other benefits, over the six months before the person lost their job. This figure is divided by 180 to determine the person’s approximate daily wage. About 50-80 percent of this figure (those with low incomes receive a higher percentage) is set as the person’s daily insurance benefit, which the person can receive for a set number of days.
Q: How is the length of coverage decided?
A: The basic benefit period depends on how long a person has been a part of the employment insurance system. For example, if a person has been making contributions to the system for less than 10 years, then he or she can receive payment for up to 90 days. For those who have been part of the system for 20 years or more, insurance payments last for 150 days. For those who have some special difficulty in finding a new job, such as a physical disability, then insurance payments may last as long as 360 days. If someone finds themselves suddenly unemployed due to company bankruptcy or layoffs, and had no time to prepare to search for a job, then the rules allow for 90 days of unemployment benefits even if the worker has been part of the insurance system for less than a year. Benefits in these cases are typically greater than for those who leave their jobs voluntarily or because of mandatory retirement.
Q: Can temporary workers receive benefits?
A: The requirements for joining the employment insurance system are the worker must work 20 hours or more per week, and the worker can expect to be employed for a year or more. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry does not have exact statistics, but it is estimated that up to 10.06 million temporary workers are currently not registered with the employment insurance system. Calls for a revision of the requirements are getting louder. At present, the Diet is considering reducing the required time of expected employment from a year or more to a half-year or more as a way to help temporary workers.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081224p2a00m0na007000c.html
Foreign temporary workers hit hard by layoffs speak out
Among the ranks of temporary workers, foreigners, who face a language barrier, are particularly vulnerable to Japan’s worsening economy, and on Sunday some 200 of those workers took to the streets of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture in an unprecedented demonstration. The protesters called for greater job security and decried the sudden layoffs of temporary workers, which can come without warning or explanation.
One of those laborers, a 32-year-old Brazilian who works at a Kosai, Shizuoka Prefecture auto parts plant, saw 40 co-workers laid off at the beginning of December. “I still have a job,” the auto worker says, “but who knows when I’ll get laid off? I’ve joined a labor union just in case.”
Some 100 of 150 members of Scrum Union Hiroshima are foreign laborers. Fifteen foreigners, most of them temporary workers at Mazda or related companies, came to talk to the Portuguese-speaking union counselors. Those who came to the session were of varying ages, from their 20s to their 50s. They all expressed the same fears: “If I lose my job, I don’t know how I will live.”
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081222p2a00m0na0130
00c.html