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© Thomson Reuters 2017.Wanted: Housewives to beat staff crunch at FamilyMart
By Sam Nussey and Ritsuko Shimizu TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
14 Comments
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erbaviva
shortage of workers is due to double taxation system in Japan. Should a mom earns more than 1.3M Y she has to pay her own insurance (15,000Y) and her own nenkin (15,000Y). Plus the father has to pay his taxes and without deductions now because wife works, the ward tax increased exponentially more than 3x the original, if he has children in daycare, the fee is increased to 3x also or to the limit. In short, a mother working for 1.3M screws her own family and must pay more 500,000 yen just for working pat time. No wonder this country is going to the drain.
PerformingMonkey
I should get my wife to go out and earn a million a year, then maybe we can think about buying an apartment.
Aly Rustom
That is an excellent point. And that particular point was supposed to be addressed by this idiot PM as part of his womenomics scam- I mean plan- excuse me. But I guess it was just lip service. Of course, housewives could help the family AND the workforce, but who wants to if you are going to be screwed by the taxes just for getting a job..
drlucifer
That the unemployment rate is at a two decade low is complete liar perpetuated by the gov't and
blindly propagated by the sheepy media.
Erbaviva gave a good reason, there are so many experienced above 50's looking for job yet the
same companies complaining of labor shortage are overlooking them.
People are just not taking the risk of leaving a low paying job for another low paying job.
The worsening job market or semblance of labor shortage has been exacerbated by the
thousands of manpower companies that the gov't has allowed to mushroom all over the country
without any control, these manpower companies are the cause of the slave wages seen here in
Japan and if the gov't doen't reign in on these companies the situation will only worsen.
It is unbelievable that a country that prides itself as the 3rd largest economy is paying far lower and has
a lower standard of living than countries with smaller economies like Austrialia or Norway.
Vetry soon even China will surpass Japan in wages.
Luddite
Who wants crappy, part time work? Why not full time jobs with proper benefits an decent pay then you'll get more applicants. Why is it 'housewives' are always seen as this kind of cheap disposable labour? Students have got wise to the labour shoratge and can now choose not to be exploited in this way.
Andy
He's smiling in the photo at the money Family Mart will be saving by hiring all part timers and no full timers. Better to put all the burden on the workers to pay their own way. No need for the company to do anything.
And don't forget to force them to work overtime, and then skimp on what hours actually constitute overtime, and don't pay for it in the end. Excellent business acumen.
Kobe White Bar Owner
@PerformingMonkey
"I should get my wife to go out and earn a million a year, then maybe we can think about buying an apartment." You got more chance of being a performing monkey mate.
Jonathan Prin
Some easy caculations:
Wife can work avoiding most taxes up to 1.3 million yen
one hour of work paid between 800 to 1000, maybe more during nighshift but I doubt you see many housewives deciding that kind of life.
flexibility is one way, company decides for you sooner or later. This is part-time job principle, one fills the gap.So you could end up working 1300 hours per year, with little decision upon your life schedule and probably more trouble to keep family together if kids.
That is not even considering all the efforts you need to make to learn all the work methods dedicated to the "ballooning" panel of services proposed in a conbini.
Screwed to the last hole.
I call that modern slavery.
Good luck to all part timers.
25years in Japan
On a past survey of OCED countries, Japan had the second to last lowest minimum wage. Places like Australia and New Zealand were the highest. No one in New Zealand has to pay for their government pension as it comes out of the tax take and there is a meaningful welfare system and accident compensation also. Although their GST (consumption tax ) is higher, food and other services are much cheaper than Japan.
Seems NZ with it's smaller population survives well. Japan is awash with money yet they return little back to the people who paid it in by way of taxes.
The only reason that they want women to work is because they think they will work for the low minimum wage and don't need to pay other benefits as related to real jobs.
drlucifer
Well at least we can all boast and derive a sense of national pride that Japan
is the 3rd largest economy in the world. Caring about one's standard of living
being 3rd world class is secondary.
gogogo
Pay them a real wage, social insurance and medical benefits!
Andrew W.
I love this solution. It's a step in the right direction, and will make it easier for those without a solid work history to make extra money for their families, as long as the hours are as flexible as they say they are. And working on making it easier for them to take on supervisory positions is great!
Laguna
My local Family Mart has been doing this for a while. When my older sister visited and demanded some bottled water, the housewife clerk spent some five minutes trying to convince me not to buy it (for very good reason - Kumamoto has some of the best water in the world, and I abhor the product, but my sister terrifies me), though she eventually relented and allowed me to buy it.
I love the idea.