Government facilities are depressing places, but none are as depressing as your neighborhood unemployment office. That's why, in Japan, unemployment offices have been given the cheery, infantilized name "Hello Work," a term that conjures up visions of company presidents waiting at the entrance with job offers and smiles.
Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, Hello Work offices are notorious for being unhelpful to people who are, by definition, desperate and frustrated. Though Japan seems to have entered an era in which structural unemployment is a fact of life, the unemployed are still treated like lepers. Their bad luck is seen to be contagious.
Young people seem to understand this better than their elders. On Sept. 13, a Hello Work office in Shibuya held a special "School Day" event for teenagers. The office would give special explanations about job-seeking to junior high-school and high-school students. More than 70,000 posters were put up at local schools, and TV cameras showed up to catch Japan's future corporate warriors getting a taste of adult life.