Japan’s Disposable Workers
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Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel
It is better to bend than to break, the old Japanese proverb goes.
Internet cafes have existed in Japan for over a decade, but in the mid 2000′s, customers began using these spaces as living quarters to make ends meet.
Internet cafe refugees are mostly temporary employees, their salaries too low to rent their own apartments. A growing class of homeless people in Japan, deemed the ‘cyber-homeless’, do not own or rent a residence. Instead, they sleep in these 24-hour business cubicles.
A Japanese government study estimated that this phenomenon is part of an increasing wealth gap in Japan, which historically has been an equal society, economically speaking.
Following the recession of the 1990s, Japan’s white collar salary-men worked increasingly long and arduous hours for fear of losing their jobs, often leading to conditions of depression and suicide. The situation took its toll on other economy workers, too, where 38% of Japan’s working class became ‘temporary employees’ employed by convenience stores, supermarkets, fast food outlets, restaurants, and other low paying, low skill positions.
Traditionally used by commuters who missed the last train home, the net cafés are now used by larger numbers of people as temporary homes.
Although such cafés originally provided only Internet services, many expanded their services to cater to their newly dispossessed clientele by including food, drink, TV, showers, and selling underwear and other personal items, much like a hostel or hotel does.
According to the Japanese government survey, those staying in the net cafes have little interest in the cafe or the Internet, instead using the cubicles only because of the low price relative to anything else available in temporary housing, business hotels, capsule hotels, hostels, or any other option– besides sleeping on the street.
It’s estimated that about half of those staying at net cafes have no job, while the other half work in low-paid temporary jobs, which pay around 100,000 yen—or $1000 per month. That amount is much lower than what is needed to rent an apartment and pay for transportation in a city like Tokyo.
Japan has become a poor place for unskilled labor. Osaka, Japan, for example, used to be a thriving day laborer’s town; today, it is home to approximately 25,000 unemployed and elderly men, many of whom are also homeless.
And it’s seen on the other end of the age spectrum, too.
More than four million of Japan’s young people called freeters, many of whom hold diplomas, are working in insecure positions, victims of an economic situation and working conditions imposed by employers realizing the benefits of using temporary employees. Disgusted or disillusioned, many have dropped out altogether from working. About 10% of all high school and university graduates could not find steady employment in a recent study, and a full 50% of those who did find a job left within three years after employment.
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