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Once a birthright for the middle class, the forty-hour-a-week job
with medical benefits and the pension is fading
Disposable workers, those easily fired without the social safety net
are becoming the norm
My project is to put a human face on these modern-day disposable workers
and explore what it means to be part of a disposable labor force
in world's third largest economy
as it struggles to remain globally competitive
Much of the world used to look at Japan's economy with admiration and jealousy
Now they wonder what went wrong
The story of modern disposable workers provides a compelling portrait of
middle-class crisis
and global unemployment
especially among the young
I initially started this project by working with aging day laborers
who found themselves homeless
These workers supported nearly two decades of economic growth
They built highways, bridges,
ports, schools
and high rises
Now they sleep under the bridges they built
and rely on occasional government-sponsored jobs
mopping the floor of the labor center
where they once came to find high-paying jobs
I visited a town called Kamagasaki in Osaka
which is located in western part of Japan
It used to be a thriving day laborers' town Today it's home to about
25,000 mostly elderly former workers
about 1,300 of whom are homeless
Alcoholism, street deaths, suicide, tuberculosis and most of all loneliness prevail
Without family ties they live and die alone as social outcasts from mainstream salaryman culture
Once thriving labor towns like Kamagasaki
are on the verge of extinction in Japan
With unemployment rate
at the record high of 5.7% even among the young and educated
it is hopeless for the grey men who used to work in the construction industry
I then followed up with the psychological impact of
disposable work on people
I focused on new phases--Karoshi
workers who overwork to suicide
Despite recent awareness of the dangers of overwork
Japanese white-collar workers also known as salaryman
increasingly work long hours
because with the fear of losing jobs and shortage of manpower
Excessive overwork causes mental health illness
such as depression
and in some cases lead to suicides
Workers I met in Kamagasaki often said,
This is what happens if you fall through crack of mainstream
but even if you stay in mainstream salaryman culture
I found out a worker is nothing but another disposable body
to a big company
With this grant I plan to work on the third and fourth parts
of this series
I will look at young part-time workers
and income gap between lifetime workers and their poorer temp colleagues
that has widened significantly
as they earn about forty percent less than those on full time contracts
The numbers have steadily climbed from 16% in 1985 to
34% in 2007
This has fostered the rank of an insecure economic underclass
reducing part-time workers to second-class citizens
called internet cafe refugees by the Japanese media
They hop from one job to another, sleep at 24-hour computer cafes
because they have no money to pay rent between jobs
I will document lives and struggles of those temporary workers
Lastly
I will report on women with dead end jobs
Employment opportunities for young women are often limited to low-paying dead end jobs
or temp positions
Critics see women as the embodiment of Japan's productivity problem
One of the world's best educated labor forces stuck in banal jobs
that do little to grow the economy
Women see no opportunities to maximize their potential
I would like to report on the frustrations and aspirations of women
in female-specific jobs
especially hostess jobs, which is bar girls, which is increasingly
a popular profession among college graduates
who can't find jobs
It is increasingly challenging
to create and maintain employment
In a time of accelerating disposable work, I believe
these workers' stories will show us the importance
of protecting our right to work
and society's responsibility to maintain employment in the competitive global economy