Tokyo

Japan’s Cabinet Office on Wednesday established an office to support municipalities giving assistance to people in the so-called employment ice age generation.

“We’ll tap unique and inventive ideas at local governments and accelerate their assistance efforts further,” Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told Cabinet Office officials.

The new office will distribute grants to local governments engaged in measures to help ice age generation members in their late 30s to early 40s to find jobs or participate in other social activities.

For the grants, 3 billion yen has been earmarked under a draft supplementary budget for fiscal 2019. The Cabinet Office expects that recipient municipalities will use the money to help members of the generation to pay transportation expenses related to their job searches and repay student loans.

The Cabinet Office started recruiting regular workers from those in the ice-age generation, planning to hire a few people.

Jiji Press