Tokyo, September 17: Japan’s new prime minister on his first day in office Thursday met labour chiefs to tackle a key challenge for his centre-left government — bringing down the country’s highest jobless rate on record.
Yukio Hatoyama met executives of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, a major support base for his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which last month ended half a century of near unbroken reign by the pro-business conservatives.
“We believe employment is a top-priority issue,” said the chief government spokesman Hirofumi Hirano after the new premier met Tsuyoshi Takagi, president of the labour group also called Rengo. “It’s very important to create jobs.”
Japan’s export-led economy, the world’s second largest, has stagnated since the early 1990s and was hammered again by the global downturn, which drove unemployment up to 5.7 percent in July, the highest level on record.
Hatoyama, 62, has pledged to create a more “fraternal society,” arguing that a society shaped only by market forces will not make people happy.
His cabinet includes former labour chiefs and vocal opponents of the free-market reforms of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, which have been blamed for widening the wealth gap and eroding a sense of social security.
Takagi, whose trade union umbrella organisation groups 6.8 million workers, voiced concern about the DPJ’s ambitions greenhouse gas reduction goal, which he said may destroy jobs.
The DPJ has pledged Japan would seek to cut emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 — far deeper than the eight-percent pledged by the previous Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government.
The trade union officials voiced concern that the DPJ’s pledge could hamper Japan’s industrial competitiveness and dampen employment, said Hirano.
Japan’s industrial lobbies have voiced similar fears.
–Agencies