College Kids and Karaoke May Be Key to Japan’s Ishiba Staying On
Live MintA shortage of students willing to work at bars, restaurants or karaoke joints in the busy year-end season — even as pay rises — is a conundrum Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba must address to shore up his leadership. The ceiling discourages part-timers, including students, from working toward the year-end, making it a hot-button issue among younger voters who turned their backs on Ishiba’s LDP in the general election. “Even if minimum pay rates are raised, it’s meaningless if the ceiling isn’t changed,” said Shoei Soga, a college senior living in Tokyo, who works part-time at a clinic in the capital. That’s equivalent to more than 10% of total tax revenue for a deeply indebted government that is still looking for ways to pay for extra defense and child support spending. “Karaoke venues are closing their doors when they could be making money at the end of the year because they can’t hire people,” the DPP’s Tamaki said last week in an interview with Bloomberg.
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