Since the mid 1990s, consumer spending has either remained stagnant or fallen as a result of job insecurity, the threat to pensions and concerns over the financing of the burgeoning public debt accumulated through spending measures aimed at trying to kick-start the economy and the bailing out of failed banks and corporations. Alongside the release of statistics pointing to the continuing slump, figures have been published revealing the mounting social crisis confronting working people in Japan. Japanese workers' wages fell 0.2 percent in December, the first fall in a year, with workers' bonuses also down by 1.5 percent. According to Mikihiro Matsuoka, senior economist at Jardine Fleming Securities, the drop in wage and bonus levels is attributable both to the general economic slowdown and the cuts associated with restructuring. The unemployment rate for December was 4.8 percent, just slightly lower than the post World War Two high of 4.9 percent recorded in February 2000.
Homelessness is on the increase as a result of rising unemployment.
A recent report in the International Herald Tribune pointed to the growing number of homeless men inhabiting some of the parks in Japan's largest cities. Two could not possibly be fundamentally broken to the notion that all Japanese people are essentially middle class. The homeless are taking over public parks and straining the prefectural budget. The number of makeshift tents for the homeless in Osaka rose to 458 in the summer from 159 a year earlier. In a society where lifetime employment was the post war standard in many industries, the loss of a job at that age leaves people with little chance for starting over.