Reflecting the precarious working conditions experienced by many non-Japanese laborers, a recent government survey found roughly 4,300 foreign workers lost, or were expected to lose, their jobs as of December.

Over 30 percent of the 486,000 foreign nationals working in Japan are employed as dispatch or contract workers, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare survey found.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200901190070.html

Demanding better job and housing security, a demonstration by 300 Brazilians and their supporters [including members of the Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus] in Tokyo Sunday is just the latest sign of the impact that the global economic slowdown is having on Japan’s Brazilian-based workforce.

Waving their national flags across the busy streets of central Tokyo, the demonstrators called out, ‘Give us a chance of employment,’ ‘Stop abandoning us’ and ‘We don’t have secured housing.’

Many temporary Brazilian workers have lost jobs recently, primarily in the car and electronics industries, as Japanese exports have slumped due to the sluggish economy and the Japanese yen’s gains against other currencies. Others have been informed of planned layoffs in the spring.

Dosantos Marcos, one of the protesters, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa he was told to stay at home, since production is slow at the car parts plant where he worked for seven years. The 42-year-old Brazilian has not worked for two months.

Since September last year, when exporters began reducing production, planes to Brazil have been fully booked, according to Hidekichi Hashimoto, the third-generation Japanese-Brazilian President of the non-profit organization ABC Japan.

‘For Japanese companies, we are the easiest to cut because most of us don’t speak Japanese and they think that we have no intention of staying long,’ Hashimoto said.

But about 80,000 of the 320,000 Brazilians living in Japan have acquired the residency visa necessary to stay permanently, he said.

Takaharu Hayashi, director of Koryunet, a Brazilian-Japanese networking association in the Aichi prefecture, has received numerous calls from Brazilians working at auto factories. Toyota Motor Corp, also headquartered in Aichi prefecture, plans to cut 3,000 non- regular workers.

‘Japanese companies are saying they can’t help it when Japanese are also having difficulties keeping their jobs,’ Hayashi said. ‘There is a mentality that Japanese business owners are trying to push Brazilians to the lowest strata because they are less visible.’

As of December last year, more than 85,000 Japanese temporary workers were set to lose their jobs by the end of March.

During the New Year holiday, some 300 unemployed Japanese temporary workers gathered at a park in Tokyo to receive free lodging and food. Most were able to receive government welfare subsidies and find apartments in a week and began job search.

But Hayashi said Brazilians who have not established the necessary relations within Japanese society to help them find resources to tackle their hardships.

‘They don’t have the safety net that Japanese workers do,’ Hayashi said. ‘The gravity of a layoff is weighed much heavier on Brazilians because the government has no system to rescue them from the troubles and their options are much more limited than the Japanese.’

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/features/
article_1454183.php/_eca057___Japans_Brazilians_demand_job_security_as_exports_slow__News_Feature__

Some 200 Brazilian workers Sunday protested over layoffs by Japanese companies, which are forcing many of them to leave the country despite their community having been integrated in Japan for more than two decades.

The demonstrators, who included mothers with their children [and also included members of the Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus], marched through the centre of Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza shopping district, calling for the government’s support for stable employment.

The crowd, many holding Brazilian flags, demanded “employment for 320,000″ Brazilians in Japan.

“We are Brazilians!” they shouted in unison. “Companies must stop using us like disposable labour.”

Since 1990 Japan has given special working visas to hundreds of thousands of Brazilians of Japanese descent, many of whom have taken up temporary positions as manual labourers in factories.

Amid the global economic downturn, however, many are being laid off and being forced to return to Brazil. They are often overshadowed by the 85,000 Japanese contract workers also said to be losing their jobs by March.

“No matter how hard we worked in Japan, we are being cut off because we are contract labourers,” said Midori Tateishi, 38, who came to Japan nearly 20 years ago. “Many of us are totally at a loss with children and a housing loan.”

Last year, Japan and Brazil marked the 100th anniversary after the first group of Japanese immigrants left for Brazil in search of a better life.

Brazil is now home to more than 1.2 million people of Japanese descent, or “Nikkeis”, the world’s largest population of ethnic Japanese outside of Japan itself.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/business/2009/January/business_January500.xml&section=business&col=

Brazilian residents from the Kanto area, Aichi and other prefectures held a demonstration in Tokyo on Sunday, campaigning for greater job security for foreign workers.

Around 350 people [including Nambu FWC members following out Winter Meeting], waving Brazilian flags and carrying banners reading “A chance for employment and education,” walked the 2.5 kilometers from Shimbashi to Ginza.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090119p2a00m0na002000c.html