nuclear-news

Japan’s low-skilled, low paid, nuclear workers

The biggest problem is the nuclear one,” said Itsunori Onodera, a lawmaker with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, whose hometown of Kesennuma was ravaged by the tsunami. “If the area of nuclear contamination spreads, people won’t live there and there’ll be no reconstruction.”

McDonald’s Wage For Nuclear Job Shows Japan Towns Fading,  Bloomberg, By John Brinsley and Aki Ito – Apr 11, 2011 A week before becoming ground zero for the world’s biggest nuclear crisis since 1986, the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant offered $11 an hour for full-time maintenance work in an area of Japan that was lagging even before last month’s earthquake and tsunami struck. The wage, the same as McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) pays for part-time work in Tokyo, shows the scale of the northern Tohoku region’s economic blight and indicates towns may never recover from the disaster…..

Igarashi said Japan will need “at least” 20 trillion yen to rebuild the area. If residents who have been evacuated from near the nuclear power plant can’t return, the amount of spending needed “will be exponentially larger,” he said.

The disaster struck an economy already mired in its second decade of stagnation and deflation. Japan’s national debt is twice the size of gross domestic product, the result of soaring welfare costs and falling revenue. The benchmark Nikkei 225 (NKY) Stock Average has fallen 6.4 percent since March 10, the day before the catastrophe struck…..

Radiation from the Fukushima complex about 220 kilometers (137 miles) north of Tokyo has contaminated vegetables and seafood in Tohoku, which depends on agriculture, fishing and manufacturing. Shipments of milk and spinach have been restricted in the area that accounts for more than a quarter of Japan’s production of rice. Radioactive iodine, cesium and cobalt have been found in the sea nearby.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said April 1 the evacuation of residents near the plant may be “long-term.”

Low-Skill Jobs

The biggest problem is the nuclear one,” said Itsunori Onodera, a lawmaker with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, whose hometown of Kesennuma was ravaged by the tsunami. “If the area of nuclear contamination spreads, people won’t live there and there’ll be no reconstruction.”

Most of the region’s jobs don’t require academic degrees or advanced training, Aldrich said. Executives who work in the region come from Tokyo and go home on weekends and some towns that in the 1980s had several schools have consolidated to one……McDonald’s Wage For Nuclear Job Shows Japan Towns Fading – Bloomberg

April 11, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | employment, Japan