Yasuo Igarashi spends a lot of time these days on the jungle gym with his daughter, after his employer joined the growing ranks of companies adopting work-sharing to ride out the global slump.
Common in parts of Europe, work-sharing means slashing employees' pay and hours instead of firing people outright. Two or three people might share what previously was one person's job.
The idea is that employees are required to share the pain of coping with hard times while everyone gets to keep their jobs — even if they're paid less.