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Record-high 70% of women held jobs in August amid labor shortage

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The percentage of working-age women with jobs in Japan reached a record-high 70.0 percent in August, government data showed Friday, underscoring an increase in female workers amid changing attitudes and a deepening labor shortage.

Couple of things..."With jobs" does not equal or mean, gainfully employed, or working by choice. With the increase in single parents, mostly women, they MUST work to provide for their children, and many work low end service type jobs or worse to make ends meet.

"Changing attitudes" my arse. More like the economy sucks so bad for many women and families that they MUST have the extra income to make ends meet. Even an hour of work per week is considered as "having a job".

The government here is pretty damn good with the smoke and mirrors, the middle class is shrinking fast, and it is not the upper class that is gaining numbers.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

So it used to be one income earned enough to sustain a family, now it takes two and that is still not enough. Regression is a term seldom used.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

What happens in America comes to Japan decades later. A husband works and a wife stays home doing household chores and raise children was a model in America too until decades ago. But the situation has changed. Husband's income can not support a family. So, two reasons brought the change - women's liberation and husband's low salaries.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

How many of these 'jobs' are just some token 5 hours a week packing shopping bags, or similar, for 800YEN/hour?

A lot of these are not 'jobs'! They are just community service.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Yep, the modern rights to servitude. Well done. Now we all get to slave for a living. Kids are struggling btw, just as a side note. Big time.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Yeah, none of them earning over ¥180,000 per month.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Well said Crick.

Sadly, many Japanese people fool themselves into believing there's no problem happening. My ex-wife being one of them.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Ricky Kaminski13Today  08:23 am JST Kids are struggling btw, just as a side note. Big time.

This is a double-edged sword. Kids will either suffer from nothing to eat or suffer from no time/attention from their parent/s. I hope parents spend quality time with their children during weekends, not on something else.

Overall, this is good news, just hope that the positions secured by women, men, and foreigners alike are stable, well-paying, and long term.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

So, two reasons brought the change - women's liberation and husband's low salaries.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The point missing from this article is that women have to work. Families can no longer survive on a single income. Many children are being raised by their grandparents while both parents are working because of the lack or and expense of child care. I’m sure there are many cases where women want to work, but I’m also sure the majority are working because they have to. In some cases, women are only working to pay for child care, which is a funky kind of logic.

The article also fails to address what kind of work these women are doing. I’m sure that most are in low paying jobs with short-term contract and no benefits. You’d call that, work for work’s sake.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The percentage of working-age women with jobs in Japan reached a record-high 70.0 percent in August

I don't believe that figure.

There must be something else included/not included in the calculation in order to get it up to 70%.

The article suggests it's simply the total number of 'working age women between the ages of 15-64'. Surely they aren't including all those from 15-22 still in full time education? What about all those who have children aged 0-3? All the 'NEETs'? All the 'Hikikomoris'?

Even if all these groups were removed from the calculation, I'd still have a hard time believing an overall figure of 70%.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Traditional jobs for women are going to explode in future as caring jobs for the elderly explode and a lot of traditional male jobs subside with automation. Take trucking jobs for instance. That is an awful lot of men.

Less men employed means fewer married couples as men can't afford it and women turn provider and decide they can't be bothered with men that are unemployed or underemployed and can't fill their traditional provider role. Don't expect men to take care of the kids either. Its not in their nature and never will be. Men are not designed that way.

Its not a particularly good thing either. The devil will make work for idle men to do. Crime will go up for sure. Recipe for disaster I think unless men can find there way into other productive pastimes. Plenty of things for them to do but it requires a lot of restructuring and time.

I personally think the day is rapidly approaching when "automation taxes" are introduced. Governments have no choice. Fewer working age men paying taxes is a disaster for the social safety net. They will have to come up with some new taxes. The more automated a company is, the more tax they pay.

Like a payroll tax for robots.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

How can you have an increase of 260 000 workers while demography is dropping by 300 000 per year !

Do kids have to get a job ?

Something fishy about what is a job.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Not just husbands, low wages everybody's low wage. Taxes up wages down. Next it will be a story about how fantastic it is to have children participate in the workforce. We can tax them too. That is if anybody can afford to have children.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Sadly, many Japanese people fool themselves into believing there's no problem happening. My ex-wife being one of them.

Sounds more like a J woman who got rid of a problem :)

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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