Living with recession in Japan

As recession deepens in Japan, people across the country explain how they are coping with the economic downturn.

The shop sells soaps and body care goods. These are non-essentials, made for fun and hobbies or for children. People who are not spending money do not spend on this.

People are now busy spending their income on food and rent and essential things like that. There is not much extra money for spending on other things.

That goes for me as well. I stopped spending money on CDs and books. There are lot more things i want to buy than I actually do.

People are very worried about the economy. There is news on that topic every day and every night. People are always talking about how much worse it is getting.

It seems as if there is no end to the bad situation. People are really nervous and it's like talk has replaced spending.

Luckily my husband has been working and my son who is about to graduate from university has got a job in a Japanese company.

People are worried they might not be able to find a job even in two years time.

Those students have to stay in university for one more year spending money on tuition. Some universities have said they will give discounts for the coming year. People are worried they might not be able to find a job even in two years time. People expect this to last a long time.

I am freelance interpreter, and government licensed tour guide and up until the middle of this year, it was business as usual. But we have noticed that we have not had the same number of job offers as last year.

I think the government should do more. We have a new prime minister but he hasn't set out concrete measures on how he plans to improve the current situation.

But this is a severe recession. I am also a consultant for small to medium-sized enterprises in this town and I have several clients who have suffered badly. One of them is in the semiconductor industry and their productivity has halved. We can't get any orders for them.

People try not to spend any money because they don't see a bright future. They try to be prudent.

In Nagaoka the main business is industry and it is badly affected. Some of my students who are employed in industry say they haven't seen recession like this before.

There are job losses in Japan. Temporary contract workers are being cut. This is one of the biggest issues affecting us today.

Fortunately, I depend on my father at the moment because I am a postgraduate student so I am not directly affected. I live in a city with big shopping malls and I do see people there. But they are only looking at the products and not buying.

There are many Japanese Brazilian workers here and unfortunately companies are cutting these workers first of all. They are now wandering the city, jobless and I can't help but feel a little bit worried about that.

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