Keidanren eyes job recovery through boost in green technology: Mitarai

TOKYO, Jan. 3 Kyodo -
Japan's most influential business lobby is planning to compile its own
job-creating measures to address a recent tide of layoffs among temporary
workers by promoting job opportunities through a boost in green technology, its
chairman Fujio Mitarai indicated in a recent interview.
''We will bring about a job recovery by stimulating new demand through
technological innovation in energy-saving and environment-responsive
automobiles, household appliances, homes and other things,'' Mitarai, the head
of the Japan Business Federation, also known as Nippon Keidanren, told Kyodo
News.
Mitarai, who also serves as chairman of Canon Inc., said Keidanren will also
aim to expand the number of workers in nursing-care and child-care services as
Japan combats a ballooning aging population and a sharply declining birthrate.
On the recent government stimulus package, which is worth 75 trillion yen in
total, the 73-year-old chairman welcomed the measure as ''more generous than
ever'' and pinned hopes on its effectiveness to shore up the faltering economy.
''I'd like it (the package) to be implemented promptly,'' Mitarai said.
''I urge the ruling and opposition parties to work together to break out of the
economic crisis,'' he said, in calling for Diet deliberations to be expedited
for the early passage of the second supplementary budget for fiscal 2008, the
draft fiscal 2009 state budget and other relevant legislations.
Mitarai also compared the current global economic slowdown to an ''inland
earthquake,'' saying ''the global marketplace has experienced an instant
downturn.''
He added that Japan's economic conditions are ''extremely severe'' and
suggested the downturn is likely to drag on until the year-end with
''production cuts spreading at an unprecedented scale and speed, especially
centering on exporting industries.''
In relation to the upcoming annual wage bargaining in the spring, Mitarai said
there will be few companies that can afford to implement an across-the-board
raise in basic pay despite demands by labor unions for a wage-scale hike in
line with recent rises in prices.
==Kyodo