Nov 29, 2023 (Bloomberg) - Japan’s trucking industry is facing stricter rules from next spring that risk triggering a nationwide wave of delivery delays affecting everything from factory component supplies to fresh food on supermarket shelves.
For decades the country’s freight sector has relied on low-paid workers slogging through long hours of overtime to transport goods via truck. That will change in April when a law passed in 2018 to limit overtime is finally applied to truckers. The ceiling will be 960 hours a year.
While the move is meant to improve work-life balance and health, it’s also likely to worsen an existing shortage of drivers, prompting the government to earmark about ¥16 billion ($109 million) for alleviation measures in an extra budget expected to be approved by parliament as soon as Wednesday.
Japan’s graying population is already causing a chronic shortfall of workers across industries from tourism to construction. The coming clampdown — which also applies to the construction industry — is likely to push up prices that are already hurting household budgets and undermining support for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The ¥13.2 trillion extra budget is largely aimed at trying to ease the pain of the strongest inflation in decades.
Almost 30% of firms surveyed by the Japan Trucking Association in 2022 said they had drivers who worked more than 960 hours of overtime a year. Without that labor, demand for deliveries could outstrip supply by as much as 35% in 2030, according to Nomura Research Institute. ...continue reading
