The establishment of a tent village in Tokyo's Hibiya Park during the New Year's holidays to help unemployed temporary workers is a sobering reflection of these hard times. In the tent village, nonprofit organization and labor union activists gave advice on a variety of matters ranging from finding employment and housing to health problems. Similar tent villages have also been established in other parts of the country, including Osaka, Aichi and Saitama prefectures.

Unemployed temporary workers have found these tent villages extremely helpful because they provide easy access to essential advice and information. When necessary, activists have even taken temporary workers to administrative offices to help them apply for social security benefits. The very fact that these temporary tent villages were created demonstrates a compelling need for the central and local governments to provide such services on a regular basis.

The government has already had the Diet revise the employment insurance law to extend unemployment insurance coverage to temporary workers who can prove that they will be employed for six months or more. Such workers will now be able to receive unemployment benefits if they lose their jobs after six months of employment, rather than the previously required one-year period.