Cities with big foreign labor force call for workers' job security+

TOKYO, Dec. 17 Kyodo - Governments of 26 Japanese cities and towns with a large population of foreign workers and their families called on the central government Wednesday to take steps to protect the workers' jobs and support their daily lives amid the
rapidly destabilizing labor market in Japan.

In an emergency request submitted to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare
and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the 26
local governments pointed to a steep rise in the number of jobless foreign
workers as Japanese companies are increasingly terminating the employment
contracts of non-regular workers in the face of an accelerating slowdown in
economic activity.
As foreign workers, such as those of Japanese ancestry, are often employed on a
temporary basis, the unstable job market poses a serious threat to their
livelihood, they said, urging the ministries to increase subsidies to companies
that employ foreign workers.
The local governments, including those of Ota, Gunma Prefecture, Ueda, Nagano
Prefecture, Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Tsu, Mie Prefecture, and Konan, Shiga
Prefecture, also called on the central government to provide greater support
for the education of children of foreign workers, by, for example, increasing
the number of teachers able to speak to the children in their native languages.
==Kyodo
2008-12-17 23:18:53