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The coronavirus had barely begun its surge across the globe when Ayako Sato was told that the nursery where she worked would temporarily close as part of Japan’s efforts to curb the outbreak.
The mother of two teenage daughters expected a few weeks of belt tightening, believing it wouldn’t be long before she was working again.
Months after she was laid off in March, Sato was skipping meals so that her children could eat regularly, wracked with guilt that she was unable to provide for them, let alone put a little cash aside each month for their university education.
“I love children, and really wanted to carry on working at the nursery, but lots of parents continued to keep their children at home, so there was no job to go back to,” Sato told the Guardian. “And the employment agency said there was nothing else for me.”
She made the best of modest welfare payments and a ¥100,000 universal cash handout the government hoped would help see households through the first wave of Covid-19 cases.
But by the summer, her finances – and her state of mind – had worsened.
“It got to the point that I seriously thought that my children would be better off financially if I was dead,” she said. “I thought they might have to quit high school and find jobs, even though that was the last thing I wanted them to do. They saw me crying every day, which must have been really hard on them.”
Sato, who is in her late 40s, was not alone. By the end of the year, more than 80,000 people in Japan had been laid off as a result of the pandemic, almost half of them employed, like Sato, in casual work.
www.theguardian.com
The mother of two teenage daughters expected a few weeks of belt tightening, believing it wouldn’t be long before she was working again.
Months after she was laid off in March, Sato was skipping meals so that her children could eat regularly, wracked with guilt that she was unable to provide for them, let alone put a little cash aside each month for their university education.
“I love children, and really wanted to carry on working at the nursery, but lots of parents continued to keep their children at home, so there was no job to go back to,” Sato told the Guardian. “And the employment agency said there was nothing else for me.”
She made the best of modest welfare payments and a ¥100,000 universal cash handout the government hoped would help see households through the first wave of Covid-19 cases.
But by the summer, her finances – and her state of mind – had worsened.
“It got to the point that I seriously thought that my children would be better off financially if I was dead,” she said. “I thought they might have to quit high school and find jobs, even though that was the last thing I wanted them to do. They saw me crying every day, which must have been really hard on them.”
Sato, who is in her late 40s, was not alone. By the end of the year, more than 80,000 people in Japan had been laid off as a result of the pandemic, almost half of them employed, like Sato, in casual work.
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