Japan taps jobless autoworkers for aged care jobs

The Japanese government is looking to the growing ranks of the unemployed to fill the gaps in the rapidly ageing country’s understaffed nursing homes, according to a recent Reuters newsagency report.

One industry body estimates 400,000 contract workers have been laid off in the six months to 31 March, with manufacturing worst hit as exports dwindle in the global downturn.

But the nursing care sector in the world’s most rapidly greying country, already starved for workers, needs to add more than 120,000 people in the next two years.

Prime Minister Taro Aso, has announced 2 trillion yen in funding to help secure jobs, much of which will be spent by local governments on funding career changes into elderly care.

“It’s a direct consequence, if you put two parts of an equation together, falling employment in manufacturing and a need for labour in the health care sector,” said Martin Schultz, senior economist at the Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo.

“The problem is the two don’t go together very well.”

Similar attempts to funnel workers from one sector to another in Europe have met with little success, he added.

Tokyo’s nursing care services are suffering acute staff shortages, with 3.24 openings for every applicant.

A new city-run programme will pay for basic training for would-be carers and offers interest-free loans to help with career change expenses such as relocation and clothing.

The loan will be waived if they stay in their jobs for six months.

Many in Japan’s nursing sector point out that training in care techniques may not provide former factory workers with the emotional qualities needed to work with disabled elderly people.

“It’s not that hard, but if you don’t feel empathy with the elderly, it would be difficult to stay in this job,” said Takako Furuno, 26, who has worked for five years as a carer at a Tokyo residential home, a career she set her heart on in her teens.

Differences in life expectancy mean the vast majority of residents in Japan’s nursing homes are female and many prefer carers of the same sex, reducing the number of vacancies for the mostly male former factory workers.

While residential homes are dubious about the government’s ideas, unions representing casual and contract workers are also unenthusiastic.

“The reason that a lot of people go into nursing care work and then leave very quickly is that working conditions are so bad,” said Makoto Kawazoe of Seinen Union.

“The pay is extremely low and it is very hard work”.

Average basic pay for a care worker in a residential home is about 190,000 yen a month, compared with an average of 300,000 yen a month across all sectors.

Government plans for a 3% pay hike for carers are unlikely to attract many more workers.

In fact, contract workers laid off from the manufacturing sector are likely to find a familiar polarised job market in elderly care.