Only about 20 percent of survivors of the March 11 disaster seeking work through public job-placement offices in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures found employment by the end of July, labor ministry sources said.
Only about 20 percent of survivors of the March 11 disaster seeking work through public job-placement offices in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures found employment by the end of July, labor ministry sources said.
A total of 63,352 people have registered with job-placement offices in the three prefectures as "victim job-seekers" from March to July. Only 13,017 of them, or 20.5 percent, landed jobs through the office's services as of the end of July.
The labor ministry suspects the number of victim job-seekers is probably larger, given that registration records may not have recorded all job-seekers in the areas amid the chaos after the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
However, the 13,017 figure does not include those who have returned to work after their companies resumed operations or those who found jobs on their own. Although this indicates that more than 20.5 percent of victim job-seekers are employed in the region, it is clear that more than half of them have not been able to find work.
No nationwide statistics are available that pin down the proportion of people who found employment through job-placement offices. But the national average can be estimated at around 30 percent by comparing the numbers of job-seekers and those who found jobs during the March-July period. The 20.5 percent figure for the disaster-hit prefectures is far below that rate.
There was at least one new job per applicant in July in all three prefectures, with the ratios for Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures exceeding the national average, driven by rising demand for rebuilding work.
But many of those jobs or the work conditions were undesirable for the job-seekers, inhibiting a rise in employment rates in the areas.
The situation is expected to worsen for those not working, as the number of jobless people without unemployment insurance could increase by several thousand each month from October.
Some 60,221 people who had enrolled in unemployment insurance programs through their employers before losing their jobs qualified for insurance payments for the initial payment term from April to July in the three prefectures. Among them, 29.7 percent, or 17,911--the largest group of recipients--had to take the shortest payment term of 90 days.
The 90-day period requires claimants to be either younger than 45 years old and have paid premiums for less than five years, or be 45 or older and have paid premiums for less than one year.
However, recipients can extend the 90-day period to 210 days if they have lost jobs or were forced to suspend business operations in the aftermath of the March 11 temblor.
Yet, some recipients' payment periods will expire as early as mid-October.
Furthermore, 180-day terms, used by 21.1 percent of all recipients, will expire starting in January, although they can extend the period to 300 days.
The central government is looking to improve employment rates in quake-hit areas by expanding spending for restructuring projects in the third supplementary budget. The government also plans to further finance job-creation programs run by prefectural governments, with the intention of providing temporary jobs for the unemployed.