The change of leadership last week at Nikkeiren, the Japan Federation of Employers' Associations, comes as Japan's worst post-World War II recession is pushing unemployment to an all-time high. It is only natural, therefore, that in his inaugural address, Chairman Hiroshi Okuda, president of Toyota Motor Corp., should have given top priority to "stabilizing employment and creating new jobs."
The jobless rate for March, the last month for which official statistics are available, reached a record 4.8 percent with 3.4 million people out of work. With businesses in a broad range of industries stepping up restructuring efforts, it is only a matter of time before the rate tops 5 percent. It could hit 6 percent by the end of the year.
High unemployment is a fact Japan must face as it tries to reshape its industrial structure. With domestic industry increasingly exposed to the rigors of global competition, there is no way to avoid restructuring. For all the pain it entails, it is indeed the way to regain international competitiveness. But this does not mean that businesses have a license to cut jobs as readily as they sell off their superfluous properties.