Thursday March 19, 03:44 PM
Japan mulls $15 bln jobs package amid wage freeze
TOKYO (AFP) - Recession-hit Japan may spend 15 billion dollars on a new jobs package, the government said Thursday, as auto and electronics giants announced they would cut recruitment and freeze wages.
The word's second-largest economy has been sliding deeper into its worst post-war crisis as a global drop in demand for its exports has hit corporate profits and Japan's top companies have shed thousands of jobs.
Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest automaker, said Thursday it would almost halve its new recruitment of domestic full-time workers to the lowest level in about a decade as it braces for its first loss.
Electronics giant Hitachi Ltd (Xetra: 853219 - news) . said it would freeze the monthly wages of regular workers for six months from April, while Sony Corp. was reportedly set to do the same, but for a full year, including executive pay.
Labour Minister Yoichi Masuzoe meanwhile said Japan may spend more than 15 billion dollars to protect jobs and help the unemployed.
The 1.5 trillion yen (15.6 billion dollars) jobs package could be financed under a new stimulus package Prime Minister Taro Aso has announced, following two earlier spending packages worth a total of about 50 trillion yen.
The plan may cover vocational training for job-seekers, subsidies to help companies save jobs, and payments to support laid-off migrant workers or help them return to their home countries, reports said.
"We need to map out employment measures aggressively to the scale of 1.5 trillion yen," Masuzoe told reporters.
"People have concerns about what to live off while they are looking for the next job or while they are getting vocational training," he said. "We want to present drastic measures to address this kind of problem."
Japan's jobless rate in January stood at 4.1 percent, still well below its record of 5.5 percent in 2002, but expected to rise as the global downturn bites deeper into Japan's export industries.
Toyota said it would take on about 1,400 full-time employees in the next fiscal year, starting in April, down from a record 2,733 new recruits this year.
"The auto industry is in an extremely dire situation," said a company spokeswoman, who asked not to be named.
Toyota's plans will take recruitment back to roughly the same level as nine years ago when Japan was emerging from a decade of recession and stagnation.
Hitachi also cut new recruitment and said it had agreed with its labor union to freeze monthly wages of regular workers for six months and implement a work-sharing system for one year from April.
Sony (Munich: 853687 - news) will also freeze the monthly wages of regular workers for one year from April and cut the pay of its executives by as much as half, Kyodo News wire reported, quoting unnamed sources.
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