•  tokyo
• Tuesday, November 01, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Inspired by the ongoing Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in the United States, thousands of Japanese youth and workers, dissatisfied with growing unemployment and harsh working conditions in the world’s third largest economy, have taken to the streets to demand stable jobs and government reforms.

Two weeks ago, a demonstration in Tokyo, billed by organisers as the largest protest in recent years, drew a crowd nearly 5,000-strong.

Labourers and students from all across Japan converged on the capital with raised fists and chants of protest as rap bands played songs about the anxiety and hopelessness in which much of the country is mired.

The current official unemployment rate is five percent of the total population but among youth the number has risen to almost nine percent.

In fact, more than 45 percent of workers aged 15-24 hold irregular jobs and just 56 percent of new college graduates receive job offers, representing the worst situation for youth in the country since World War II.

Ichie Kumagai, 28, a daycare worker who travelled more than 359 kilometres from Osaka, Japan’s second largest city, to speak at the rally in Tokyo, said, 'I am angry, frustrated and worried about the future.

'Young people like myself face a hopeless situation today because officials and society do not care about us,' she told the indignant crowd.

Intense lobbying by millions of daycare workers earlier this year managed to raise the minimum wage to nine dollars per hour, up 50 cents from 2010.

More than 30,000 signatures have been collected in Saita town in Osaka alone, in a petition to stop planned regulations that will permit such changes as increasing the number of children to a maximum of 30 per daycare worker and hiring part-time workers instead of offering regular jobs.

Kumagai told IPS that her salary has remained static over six years of hard work while her job has only gotten more demanding.

She works at least 12 hours a day without overtime pay each week. She added that saving money has become crucial to protect against an unstable future.

Meanwhile Japan’s huge fiscal deficit stemming from its two decade economic recession, coupled with an ageing population, has ushered in new regulations aimed at reducing public welfare spending.

Japanese protestors are inspired by the rhetoric in the U.S. against bailing out banks and big businesses, as well as against austerity measures that are widely believed to shrink the middle class by slashing public spending and creating widespread, cyclical unemployment.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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