The economic fallout from the new coronavirus in
"Your job ends in three days' time," a woman employed on a temporary contract for the front desk of a
When she started her three-month contract in February, she had been told by her boss that the position was long term, and had planned to renew it from May.
But after the hotel's occupancy rates dropped due to the spread of the virus, she was told by the agency that supplied her to the hotel the contract would terminate on expiry, with no chance of renewal.
The next day, the hotel laid her off before it suspended operations and before her contract expired.
"I want them to pay me until the end of this month at least," she said. The agency, however, is only willing to pay until her last working day, she said.
On
"In early March we had a lot of enquiries about suspending business operations, but since late March it has centered on dismissals," said one participant, while another said the situation in the labor market is "a battlefield."
Regional labor unions also reported firms had begun shortening the contracts of temporary employees, in preparation of laying them off.
At the forefront of participants' minds was the aftermath of the collapse of
"Unlike the Lehman shock, where temporary workers in the manufacturing industry were the hardest hit, this one is causing problems for people with all kinds of employment statuses," said
Economists are also keeping an eye on the pandemic's impact on the workforce.
He also estimates the number of unemployed will hit 2.72 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, up from 1.56 million in the same period last year.
The pace of increase will be faster than during the Lehman shock, which saw 940,000 people lose their jobs during the one-year period through the third quarter of 2009, he added.
But
"We are still in the early stages of the coronavirus impact. There is a high possibility it will ripple out to all industries and become even more serious than the Lehman shock," he said.
==Kyodo
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