The government is launching support measures for the "employment ice age generation" — the age group that graduated from school between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s and found it extremely hard to get decent jobs when businesses cut back on hiring following the collapse of the bubble boom. Officials have set a goal of helping 300,000 people in this generation, many of whom continue to hold low-paying, unstable jobs, land regular full-time positions over the next three years. However, government support will not be enough. The effort needs to include businesses changing hiring practices that have slammed the door on many people in this generation.
It is rare for the government to provide an intensive employment support program for a specific generation, but the effort is driven by a growing sense of crisis that these people — which include children of the post-World War II baby boomers and are relatively large in number (they were born when the nation still had 2 million new babies each year, more than double the current rate) — may pose a threat to the social security system when they join the ranks of the elderly, unless their conditions are improved now.
The government reportedly plans to offer job training and other intensive support for roughly 1 million people in this generation — now in their mid-30s to mid-40s — who are in especially dire situations. It will also promote the hiring of their ranks as national and local government employees.