AGL 39.58 Decreased By ▼ -0.42 (-1.05%)
AIRLINK 131.22 Increased By ▲ 2.16 (1.67%)
BOP 6.81 Increased By ▲ 0.06 (0.89%)
CNERGY 4.71 Increased By ▲ 0.22 (4.9%)
DCL 8.44 Decreased By ▼ -0.11 (-1.29%)
DFML 41.47 Increased By ▲ 0.65 (1.59%)
DGKC 82.09 Increased By ▲ 1.13 (1.4%)
FCCL 33.10 Increased By ▲ 0.33 (1.01%)
FFBL 72.87 Decreased By ▼ -1.56 (-2.1%)
FFL 12.26 Increased By ▲ 0.52 (4.43%)
HUBC 110.74 Increased By ▲ 1.16 (1.06%)
HUMNL 14.51 Increased By ▲ 0.76 (5.53%)
KEL 5.19 Decreased By ▼ -0.12 (-2.26%)
KOSM 7.61 Decreased By ▼ -0.11 (-1.42%)
MLCF 38.90 Increased By ▲ 0.30 (0.78%)
NBP 64.01 Increased By ▲ 0.50 (0.79%)
OGDC 192.82 Decreased By ▼ -1.87 (-0.96%)
PAEL 25.68 Decreased By ▼ -0.03 (-0.12%)
PIBTL 7.34 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-0.68%)
PPL 154.07 Decreased By ▼ -1.38 (-0.89%)
PRL 25.83 Increased By ▲ 0.04 (0.16%)
PTC 17.81 Increased By ▲ 0.31 (1.77%)
SEARL 82.30 Increased By ▲ 3.65 (4.64%)
TELE 7.76 Decreased By ▼ -0.10 (-1.27%)
TOMCL 33.46 Decreased By ▼ -0.27 (-0.8%)
TPLP 8.49 Increased By ▲ 0.09 (1.07%)
TREET 16.62 Increased By ▲ 0.35 (2.15%)
TRG 57.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.82 (-1.41%)
UNITY 27.51 Increased By ▲ 0.02 (0.07%)
WTL 1.37 Decreased By ▼ -0.02 (-1.44%)
BR100 10,504 Increased By 59.3 (0.57%)
BR30 31,226 Increased By 36.9 (0.12%)
KSE100 98,080 Increased By 281.6 (0.29%)
KSE30 30,559 Increased By 78 (0.26%)

Japan may spend more than 15 billion dollars to protect jobs and help the unemployed amid its steepest economic downturn in decades, Labour Minister Yoichi Masuzoe said Thursday. The plan could cover vocational training for job-seekers, subsidies to help companies save jobs, and payments to help laid-off migrant workers or help them return to their home countries, said reports quoting unnamed officials.
"We need to map out employment measures aggressively to the scale of 1.5 trillion yen (15.6 billion dollars)," Masuzoe told reporters. "People have concerns about what to live off while they are looking for the next job or while they are getting vocational training," he said. "We want to present drastic measures to address this kind of problem."
Asias largest economy is heading for its worst recession since World War II, and major auto, electronics and other companies have slashed tens of thousands of jobs, hitting temporary contract workers the hardest. Toyota Motor Corp said Thursday it plans to halve recruitment of full-time workers in the next fiscal year starting in April to around 1,800 employees, while some other companies have cut or frozen new hiring.
Japans jobless rate in January stood at 4.1 percent, still below its record of 5.5 percent in 2002, but is expected to rise as the global downturn bites deeper into Japans export industries. The Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry said last month that nearly 158,000 contract workers have or will have lost jobs by the end of March. The jobs package could be financed under an upcoming stimulus package Prime Minister Taro Aso has announced, following two earlier spending packages worth a total of about 50 trillion yen.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2009

Comments

Comments are closed.