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  franz75 at 12:15 PM JST - 6th October

  The problem with the right wing and business lobby is that when the economy is fine, everything should be deregulated and make you think there will always be a job, maybe even better, if you get laid off. Everything is fine. Don't worry. Now comes a crisis...

  Those people have no social responsibilities.

  Ultra-liberalism and communism are extremes but both lead to disasters...

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  kirakira25 at 12:17 PM JST - 6th October

  “Family murder has increased in Japan because companies have stopped treating humans the way they should be treated,’’

  Erm...when did Japanese companies EVER treat humans the way they should be treated??

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  hakujinsensei at 01:06 PM JST - 6th October

  hahaha, it goes without saying that Kamei is a sleazy politician. as someone once told me so eloquently, real people with real jobs dont become politicians. that being said, you cant just throw the baby out with the bath water. fact is that when unemployment and poverty increase, so does domestic violence and the companies are responsible for how their profits get distributed thru the economy.

  there seems to be an overwhelming idea that the jgovt is to blame for all these problems. people are led where they are willing to be led. the govt. is not the problem. lazy citizens that allowed themselves to be bought n sold like cattle to feed the corporate machine are responsible. society at large has traded virtue and character for a big screen tv...

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  drink_more_milk at 02:21 PM JST - 6th October

  "Under Koizumi, the financial/social safety net has had much bigger holes poked in it. The distribution of wealth, relative to a couple of decades ago, has become a lot less equitable."

  The country was already in a deep depression and strong reforms were required. Why guarantee employment to some of the least productive work force in the developed world? Unfortunately, reforms were abandoned the instant the stock market bounced back; everyone went back to 'business as usual'. Is it any surprise that the depression is back to haunt Japan?

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  dolphingirl at 02:30 PM JST - 6th October

  I think himasan and kira kira said it best. First, most Japanese companies have been treating their employees as subhumans and making them work ridiculously long hours for many years. This is not some new development. Second, working for one company for your whole life where your performance has little to do anything and you feel you don't have any real control in your job cannot lead to any sense of accomplishment, self-confidence or personal power. It's no wonder that workers feel stressed out, depressed adn exhausted. Also if your whole identity is wrapped up in your job and then if you lose it, you would surely 'lose it'.

  In addition, this is a widesweeping general accusation. Can we blame the increase in family murders and suicides just on one thing? I think not. This is a complex problem with the interaction of many societal factors.

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  intomioka at 03:34 PM JST - 6th October

  This man thinks that poverty is causing citizens of one of the richest countries in the world to kill themselves. He is clearly wrong.

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  Yelnats at 04:12 PM JST - 6th October

  The dude is an idiot.

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  rajakumar at 08:27 PM JST - 6th October

  Keidanren needs people like Sony's Akio Morita,whose books still inspire.

  Akio Morita believed in Japan/Sony and never believed in slow down/school grades/qualifications.

  Slow down comes not from Japan/N225/Sony.

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  nuju at 11:09 PM JST - 6th October

  I don't know about you but the only way and the best way to solve any problem is by tackling each issue one at time to much to soon tends to backfire and leaves you wondering what went wrong.

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  usaexpat at 11:15 PM JST - 6th October

  He is in part correct, the men here signed on with a company and gave their entire life to said company to support their families and expected to retire one day. There are other reasons for the murder/suicide uptick but the loss of one's job can certainly contribute.

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  Eddisofbextar at 11:08 AM JST - 7th October

  For-profit. Companies like to make money.

  Government laws to protect the workforce. These laws do not exist in Japan. This is what needs to change to help a number of social issues in this country. Make laws that give severe monetary penalties on companies that practice shady employee treatment. multiplied by the number of reported instances and magically the condition at the workplace will become a lot better.

  There are many countries that have systems in place for this. Japan has been a follower in terms of social advancement and new system implementation for thousands of years. Simply open yer eyes and look, easy to find examples from leader-countries.

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  Eddisofbextar at 11:14 AM JST - 7th October

  Man, my company may fire me soon... better not have babies. No one to help me out if I lose my job. Babies too expensive, cant have em. Women/Marriage is too expensive, no thanks. I work too many hours to have a family. I work too many hours to meet a mate. I work too many hours, so my health is crap. Companies arent hiring seishain, so I have to be a baito boy. etc....etc...

  Man I wish there was 1 easy-to-use phone number to report problems, and have the government group take care of the issue promptly and effectively.... But this is Japan, who am I kidding? Just bow my head in defeat and wait for the next train to come by to jump in front of. At least then I'll finally get a vacation.

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  ppayne at 11:59 AM JST - 7th October

  Kamei is a quack who should not have a job. Pathetic. He is the guy who is saying, let's roll back the post office privatization just because he personally had issues with Koizumi over it (and got ejected from his party as a result of wanting to avoid any change in the world). Please do us a favor and keel over, dude?

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  Monoflow at 11:13 PM JST - 7th October

  The mostly inhuman ultra-liberalism, which is practiced in Japan (and in my homecountry Switzerland, too), is certainly one of the reasons, which leads to such tragedys. But, of course only one reason...

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  andrewtokyo at 05:18 PM JST - 17th October

  I am a JSCCP clinical psychologist and JFP psychotherapist working in Japan for over 20 years. I would like to put forward a perspective as a mental health practitioner for some of the reasons behind the unacceptably high suicide in Japan.

  Mental health professionals in Japan have long known that among the main reasons for the unnecessarily high suicide rate in Japan are unemployment, bankruptcies, and the increasing levels of stress on businessmen and other salaried workers who have suffered enormous hardship in Japan since the bursting of the stock market bubble here that peaked around 1997. Until that year Japan had an annual suicide of rate figures between 22,000 and 24,000 each year. Following the bursting of the stock market and the long term economic downturn that has followed here since the suicide rate in 1998 increased by around 35% and since 1998 the number of people killing themselves each year in Japan has consistently remained well over 30,000 each and every year to the present day.

  The current worldwide recession is of course impacting Japan too, so unless very proactive and well funded local and nation wide suicide prevention programs and initiatives are immediately it is very difficult to foresee the governments previously stated intention to reduce the suicide rate to around 23,000 by the year 2016 being achievable. On the contrary the numbers, and the human suffering and the depression and misery that the people who become part of these numbers, have to endure may well stay at the current levels that have persistently been the case here for the last ten years. It could even get worse unless even more is done to prevent this terrible loss of life.

  The current numbers licensed psychiatrists (around 13,000), Japan Society of Certified Clinical Psychologists clinical psychologists (16,732 as of 2007), and Psychiatric Social Workers (39,108 as of 2009) must indeed be increased. In order for professional mental health counseling and psychotherapy services to be covered for depression and other mental illnesses by public health insurance it would seem advisable that positive action is taken to resume and complete the negotiations on how to achieve national licensing for clinical psychologists in Japan through the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and not just the Ministry of Education as is the current situation. These discussions were ongoing between all concerned mental health professional authorities that in the ongoing select committee and ministerial levels that were ongoing during the Koizumi administration. With the current economic recession adding even more hardship and stress in the lives its citizens, now would seem to be a prime opportunity for the responsible Japanese to take a pro-active approach to finally providing government approval for national licensing for clinical psychologists who provide mental health care counseling and psychotherapy services to the people of Japan.

  During these last ten years of these relentlessly high annual suicide rate numbers the English media seems in the main to have done little more than have someone goes through the files and do a story on the so-called suicide forest or internet suicide clubs and copycat suicides (whether cheap heating fuel like charcoal briquettes or even cheaper household cleaning chemicals) without focusing on the bigger picture and need for effective action and solutions. Economic hardship, bankruptcies and unemployment have been the main cause of suicide in Japan over the last 10 years, as the well detailed reports behind the suicide rate numbers that have been issued every year until now by the National Police Agency in Japan show only to clearly if any journalist is prepared to learn Japanese or get a bilingual researcher to do the research to get to the real heart of the tragic story of the long term and unnecessarily high suicide rate problem in Japan.

  I would also like to suggest that as many Japanese and people have very high reading skills in English that any articles dealing with suicide in Japan could usefully provide contact details for hotlines and support services for people who are depressed and feeling suicidal.

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