Financial Crisis Hits Brazilians in Japan

HAMAMATSU, Japan, Nov. 28, 2008 -- After almost 12 years in Japan, Isac Freitas never imagined he would see a day where he would be lining up at a job placement agency.

"My employer told me about two weeks ago Nov. 28th would be my last day of work," said Freitas, a 38-year-old native of Brazil. Freitas said he worked for an auto parts company making transmissions in the city of Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture, 165 miles southwest of Tokyo. The city is home to auto parts and assembly plants such as Suzuki Motor Corp. "I worked for the same company for more than eleven years and all I got was a verbal notice of termination."

Freitas is one of many foreign contract workers serving in Japan's manufacturing sector who recently have been hit by the sudden economic downturn. As major manufacturers such as Toyota, Suzuki and Yamaha cut their production due to grim worldwide sales, those companies, subsidiaries and parts makers have also started to cut contract workers. Japanese dailies reported Toyota is planning to slash 3,000 of 6,000 contract workers by March, 2009. Suzuki Motor Corp, which runs plants from auto parts to final assembly in Hamamatsu City, also plans to let go of 600 contract workers.

"Even among contract workers, foreigners are often the first to be let go," said Kazushige Mori, the Director General of the Japan-Brazil Central Association. "Many find it hard to find another job and I hear many flights to Brazil are all sold out through the end of the year. Things do not look good."

The Japanese government does not keep track of displaced foreign workers but local job agencies are facing changes in the workforce. "We have been getting more inquiries than we can ever handle," said Akihiko Sugiyama, the chief of the foreign worker section at Hello Work Hamamtsu, a government-run job center. "The number of visitors to our agency has been increasing steadily each month this year but we are seeing a lot more people in the past few months – many of them are Brazilians."

Sugiyama said the agency's five staff members have literally been working overtime to assist foreign workers who have been displaced. "The number of visitors went up at least by 50 percent compared to the beginning of this year. This is unprecedented," Sugiyama said.