The nation's unemployment rate, which hit an all-time high of 5 percent in July, may present the greatest threat to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's reforms, begging the question, "Is reform worth the pain?"
It's a question that the crowds filling Tokyo's Hello Work public job search centers have been asking for a while. Here, men in their 40s wearing business suits eagerly scan job descriptions titled "collection agent for consumer finance company," "apartment caretaker" and "metal plating technician."
A wave of massive corporate restructuring has finally reached Japan's leading high-tech companies, which had retained competitiveness during prolonged economic stagnation.