Japan Press Weekly

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2015 July 1 - 7 [POLITICS]

Understaffed convenience store FCs in need of governmental support: JCP Fujino

Convenience stores are indispensable for the daily life of people in Japan, but around 90% of them have been understaffed and only 10% of franchise owners are said to have public social insurance.

About 50,000 convenience stores exist in Japan. They provide a variety of services not only selling merchandise but also making deliveries to shopping-challenged consumers and taking on some parts of administrative services such as accepting payment for utility bills. Why are they facing a shortage of workers and unable to pay social insurance premiums?

Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Fujino Yasufumi at a House of Representatives committee meeting on July 3 said that one of the factors is the rapid growth of the number of convenience stores. Among the top five convenience store franchisers alone, 3,200 stores were newly opened last year. Another element he pointed out is a significant increase in workloads associated with the diversification of services.

Furthermore, the JCP representative noted that the royalties convenience store franchises have to pay to their franchisers are too high. This makes the payment of social insurance premiums unaffordable for most franchise owners.

Fujino underlined the importance of the national government to take measures to support convenience store franchises, saying, “Labor shortages could get worse and worse at this rate.” He demanded that the government find out how many franchises have entered into the social insurance program and conduct an official survey of the actual working conditions.