Senior officials of the Japan Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) urged the government Thursday to formulate a supplementary budget for fiscal 2002 to help create jobs and fight deflation, according to Rengo officials.
Rengo Vice Presidents Tsuyoshi Takagi and Kenzo Maruyama made the request during a meeting with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, they said.
The pair told Fukuda the government should spend an additional 11 trillion yen on fighting deflation and 3 trillion yen on job creation in the current fiscal year, and urged the government to focus on ways to boost the job market in the budget for fiscal 2003.
Fukuda, however, was cool to the request, saying, "Government coffers have no extra money and fiscal steps would not be necessarily good (to solve the problems)." He said the government has already placed priority on addressing employment problems, the officials said.