In the run-up to moving season, the national shortage of truck drivers has become acute, forcing transport companies to ask customers who are switching homes to delay their moving dates until after the spring break.
Since the beginning of the year, the Japan Trucking Association has been requesting that companies and government agencies avoid making employees relocate during the period around April 1, when many of them conduct personnel reshuffles.
Shiro Ishizue, the association's spokesman, said it is becoming increasingly difficult to make reservations with moving companies, noting that the peak has expanded from the traditional last two weeks of March, to a six-week period that now spans the whole of March and ends in mid-April.