TOKYO: Sixty-year-old Yashiro Haga is folding his Tokyo noodle ramen shop after 15 years in December, unable to overcome the prospect of a lasting customer slump due to the coronavirus crisis.
Small and mid-sized businesses like Haga's noodle bar employ about 70 per cent of Japan's workers and account for 99.7 per cent of the total number of enterprises, according to government data, leading some to worry that a COVID-19 resurgence could trigger an increasing number of layoffs among small firms.
"Many ramen shops won't appear in any figures when they're closing down because they're small, privately owned businesses," said Haga, who has gone without salary since April. "There are many firms with a lack of cash flow," said Manabu Shintani, CEO of Actpro, a property intermediation services provider.
He estimated that the real number of ramen shops shutting down nationwide was about 290 in October and November alone.
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