Japan plans $15.6 Billion Emergency Job Measures

Japan is planning emergency employment measures worth 1.5 trillion yen ($15.6 billion) to soften the impact on the job market of the deepening recession, the labor minister said on Thursday.

Katsumi Kasahara / AP

The plan, which media reported would include money for the unemployed in jobs training, follows a wave of job cuts and signs that firms will freeze workers' salaries this year as the global financial crisis saps demand for Japanese exports.

"The priority now should be on protecting jobs," Labor Minister Yoichi Masuzoe told a news conference. "We want to announce measures for jobs on the scale of around 1.5 trillion yen."

The steps are expected to be part of an extra budget Prime Minister Taro Aso is trying to compile for the fiscal year starting in April on top of 12 trillion yen in spending announced last year.

Aso may not be able to submit the extra budget until May, however, as the 2009/10 budget and related bills have been stalled in a divided parliament where opposition parties control the upper house.

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The financial daily Nikkei reported that the government and the top business organization and labor group are expected to agree on the emergency job measures as soon as next Monday.

Ideas included work-sharing programs and money for those no longer eligible for unemployment benefits, it said.

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