December 16, 2014
The Washington Post just hates, hates, hates the idea that ordinary workers (i.e. people who don’t earn six, seven, and eight figure salaries) should enjoy any job security. They took this hatred to Japan in their lead editorial, complaining that Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a news conference following the re-election of his party pledged to pressure companies to raise wages. The Post told readers:
“a more effective, if less populist, action would be the passage of labor reforms to make hiring and firing easier.”
Clearly the Post is focused on the firing part of the picture. Since Abe took office, Japanese companies have had little problem hiring workers. The employment to population ratio has risen by two full percentage points in the less than two years since Abe took office. This would be comparable to an increase in employment in the United States of almost 5 million people. That is almost 1 million more than the job growth we have actually seen over this period.
Apparently the Post’s editors thought it would be too crude to just say that it should be easier for Japanese companies to fire workers so it added the comment on hiring to confuse the issue.
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