Japan ramps up spending for typhoon relief, but workers are scarce

TOKYO - Ravaged by a series of storms, including the worst typhoon in decades, Japan is ramping up spending on rescue, repair and clean-up. But there’s a catch: there are more shovels than hands.

“We’ll take fiscal steps, including a supplementary budget if necessary, so that disaster-hit local governments can do the utmost on rebuilding,” Abe said. As Japan’s population greys and shrinks, the supply of construction workers has slumped by 28% from its peak in the late 1990s to around 5 million. Yet demand remains robust amid a nearly seven-year economic expansion and the approach of next year’s the Tokyo Olympics.

Tateyama, where Suzuki lives, was still recovering from massive flooding and long power outages caused by Typhoon Faxai last month when Hagibis hit on Oct. 12-13. On Friday and Saturday, a third storm inundated the city, killing 10 in Chiba Prefecture and dumping as much as 283.5 millimeters of rain on some areas over 12 hours.

The shortage of construction workers is most pronounced in rural Japan, where the population and construction projects are in steep decline. Highly skilled workers tend to head to bigger cities, said Fumitaka Miura, director at the Research Institute of Construction and Economy, a private think-tank.To address the worker shortage, some construction companies are embracing technology.

Workers are old men, the young people are weak effeminate whimps

They need more pakistanis

Scarcity of workers in Japan: no surprise there, given a shrinking, but heavily aging society that, being fiercely anti-immigration oriented, tries to resolve all its societal problems (including care f/t old-aged) by introducing little robots: There are limits to such policies.

How can workers be scarce in a nation of 126 million people?

better get migrants /s

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