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5 - Change and challenge in the labor market

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2009

Ross Mouer  and
Hirosuke Kawanishi
By
Kawanishi Hirosuke
Ross Mouer
Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria
Hirosuke Kawanishi
Affiliation:
Waseda University, Japan
Kawanishi Hirosuke
Affiliation:
Professor of Sociology, Waseda University, Tokyo
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Summary

Today is May Day, eighty some years on from the first May Day in 1920 … It has been a bleak year for labor. This year's Spring Offensive resulted in no gains for most, and even a cut in wages for some. Job security, a traditional priority for Japan's unions, has been undermined by corporate lay-offs …

There is also positive news in signs of an economic recovery. However, real economic growth, meaning restructuring, is needed. More effort must be put into creating … opportunities for students to acquire the new IT technology that can be immediately used at work. Steps need to be taken to implement work sharing. Changes are needed so that demand for nursing care and other services can be met. Employers must stop forcing workers to put in unpaid overtime … The gap in working conditions for regular and part-time workers must be closed … Without movement in these directions, new ways of working will not emerge

(editorial in the Tokyo Shimbun [morning edition], 1 May 2002, p. 4).

The winds of change

The decision of many Japanese to work as they do is fundamentally shaped by their options in a very segmented labor market that tends to lock each individual into a clearly delineated niche. A number of dualities characterize Japan's labor market. Internal labor markets are also differentiated. Educational histories determine entry into the labor market and entrenched hierarchies influence job choices in the segmented labor market.

Type
Chapter
Information
A Sociology of Work in Japan , pp. 97 - 116
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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