Only part-time jobs are available for young people

More than 300 job seekers visit the public job placement office for the young in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward every day only to find that jobs available for them are limited to contingency work.

The average unemployment rate for people between 15 and 24 in the eleven months in 2002 was 10.1 percent, higher than the rate for people of all ages combined.

Since the job placement office for young people was established in November 2001, about 25,000 young people have come and applied for jobs and registered as job seekers, but only 2,200 of them found jobs.

A 23-year-old man who is looking for a social services-related job said that most of the jobs available are part-time jobs.

Commenting on the scarcity of full-time jobs for young people, Kinoshita Hideto, executive committee vice chair of the Confederation of the All Labor Ministry Workers Unions, said that this is due to changes in society, including the end of the era of the life-time employment system and the increase in short-term unstable contingency jobs. He pointed out that the government is in favor of this trend and is promoting the "revision" of the Labor Standards Law to enable employers to hire workers up to five years as irregular workers who can be dismissed at any time. (end)