The Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) on Monday urged the government to compile a 14 trillion yen supplementary budget for fiscal 1999 to create more jobs and to rejuvenate the nation's economy, Rengo officials said Monday.
In proposals submitted to Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka, Rengo called on the government to compile the supplementary budget and the fiscal 2000 budget with a clear target of creating more than 1 million jobs.
Rengo also requested the government to legislate a new privacy protection law regarding information held by the public and private sectors to secure individuals' privacy.
The government is planning to submit a supplementary budget of about 500 billion yen to the Diet later this week.
In its request concerning the supplementary budget, Rengo proposed to allocate 5 trillion yen for job creation and unemployment aid, 1.5 trillion yen for promoting new businesses and 7 trillion yen for stimulating public consumption through measures such as expanding child-rearing benefits.
Kiyoshi Sasamori, chief secretary of Rengo, said that a sharp rise in the unemployment rate recently appears to have stopped, though heads of many families remain out of work.
"Considering those negative factors, it will be necessary to ensure the sizable budget Rengo is proposing," said Sasamori.
Although Nonaka did not touch on compilation of a second supplementary budget for the current fiscal year, which is expected in autumn, he said that the government will keep implementing measures necessary to shore up the economy, according to Sasamori.