Nearly 80 percent of people have lost trust in the Japanese government's economic indicators in the wake of a recent revelation that years of faulty wage data releases led to some unemployment benefits and workers compensation going unpaid, a Kyodo News survey showed Sunday.
In a nationwide opinion poll conducted Saturday and Sunday on 1,041 registered voters, the support rate for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet was nearly flat at 43.4 percent, after it fell to 42.4 percent in December from 47.3 in November apparently over wrangling in the Diet about the passage of a bill to accept more foreign workers.
(Labor minister Takumi Nemoto apologizes for faulty jobs statistics at a press conference on Jan. 11, 2019.)
The disapproval rate slightly declined to 42.3 percent from 44.1 percent in December.
The survey showed 78.8 percent of respondents do not trust official indicators after the government said Friday it had failed to pay over 50 billion yen ($460 million) in benefits to nearly 20 million people due to the labor ministry's publishing of faulty jobs data for the past 15 years.
The sampling errors date back to 2004 when the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's monthly labor survey, a key indicator of the country's employment conditions, began skipping many business establishments with 500 or more employees even though current rules require full coverage of such companies.
Labor minister Takumi Nemoto said in a press conference there was a manual shared by those involved in compiling the data saying only some of the large firms needed to be surveyed, though he denied the data were systematically manipulated to make wages appear smaller than they actually were.
Some 69.1 percent of people polled in the weekend survey found Nemoto's explanation of and response to the matter insufficient, with only 18.0 percent saying the minister is addressing the issue properly.
The incident triggered a backlash not only from people receiving benefits and compensation but also corporate executives who have been repeatedly urged to raise wages by Abe's administration.
Among other recent developments, the public are supportive of the government's response to South Korea's top court rulings since last year ordering Japanese companies to compensate South Koreans for labor during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
The survey showed 80.9 percent supported the Japanese government's rejection of the court orders, with 11.3 percent against it.
Japan maintains that the issue of compensation was settled "completely and finally" under a bilateral accord to settle property claims signed alongside the 1965 Japan-South Korea treaty that established diplomatic ties.
Tokyo recently requested Seoul to launch talks as a Japanese steelmaker faced the imminent seizure of its assets in South Korea.
As for Abe's announcement earlier in the month that Japan's new era name will be revealed one month before the upcoming imperial succession on May 1, 66.2 percent were in favor of the decision.
Era names are widely used in Japanese calendars, newspapers and official documents, along with the Gregorian calendar.
Regarding the House of Councillors election in summer, 31.9 percent said they would vote for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the proportional representation segment, 9.4 percent for the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and 3.5 percent for the LDP's coalition partner, the Komeito party.
The survey contacted 746 randomly selected households with eligible voters and 1,206 mobile phone numbers, with a total of 1,041 providing valid answers.
