Raw Japan

Homeless on rise in post-Lehman Japan

A year has passed since U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers was forced into bankruptcy, sending out shockwaves that brought the global financial market to its knees.

And just who did those waves batter the most?

Well, in Japan, poverty activists and NPOs have told me the real victims of the Lehman Shock are the laid-off factory workers who were forced out of company housing and onto the streets, creating a new breed of homeless.

In the year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, companies have laid off more than 230,000 contract workers, helping to push Japan’s jobless rate to a post-war record 5.7 percent (macro economist Edward Hugh notes this figure is closer to 12 percent if we include Japan’s “hidden jobless”). With a growing jobless rate, it’s easy to assume homeless numbers are up too, but it’s even harder to prove.

That’s because official government numbers actually show a decrease in the number of homeless. But on the streets I have heard a very different story.

“Homeless numbers are up big time. At a soup kitchen in Ueno Park there used to be about 600 people who came for meals but now there are about 1,000 people lining up,” homeless activist Yuuki Akira told me at a homeless festival during Japan’s Obon Holiday.

OT beats date QT

The vast majority of newly hired Japanese say overtime is now more important than dating if given a choice, reflecting growing job anxiety in the world’s No.2 economy.

A survey by the Japan Productivity Centre, a private think tank, showed over 80 percent of new recruits picking working late over having a date.

Unemployment is at 5.2 percent, the highest since 2003, while there are only about four jobs available for every nine applicants.

“The financial and economic recession and fears of corporate restructuring and bankruptcy are motivating new employees to prioritise work over private life,” the centre’s Tetsu Takano told me.

The trend was more slightly pronounced among women, as 88 percent picked OT over QT, or quality time, with a beau, compared to 78 percent for men in the survey of 3,200 new recruits.

The average age for men and women to marry in Japan is rising, while economic pressures may be contributing to that trend.

But perhaps more office time could lead to at least one mitigating statistic,  an increase in ”shanai kekkon”, or same office weddings.