SUMMARY OF THE 6TH QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY
ON
WORK AND LIFE OF WORKERS
Ⅰ Outline of Survey
1. Purpose
of Survey
This survey aims to clarify the trends in economy,
employment, income, and consumption, and to obtain the basic data for considering
policy issues by identifing workers' awareness concerning their job and life.
2. Subject
of Survey
Based on the sex and age distribution of employees,
900 private enterprise employees in their twenties to fifties living in the Tokyo
Metropolitan Area and Kansai Area were selected from the monitors of INTAGE,
Inc. The number of valid respondents in
this survey is 748.
3. Period
of Survey
From October 10-20, 2003
Ⅱ Outline of
Survey Results
1. Regular
survey items
〇 Though the present economic situation is slowly
improving, fears of unemployment have slightly increased to 23.7% since the
last survey. 
〇
Of all respondents, 53.3％ took antirecessionary measures and employment adjustment. Cutting wages is the most common method, followed
by reducing personnel and restricting overtime work.
〇 If confronted with unemployment, 70.1% of workers
think it would be difficult to find a new job equivalent to the present one.
2. The 6th Survey - Special survey items: Working Hours
and Need for Labor Unions
〇 The scheduled working hours and non-scheduled working hours
per week of regular employees are 40.4 hours and 10.9 hours, respectively. The percentage of employees who work 60
hours or more per week is 21.3%.
〇 Of all respondents, 35.2% answered that they do
overtime work which is not fully or
partly paid (hereinafter "service overtime").
〇 Efforts to eliminate "service overtime" are not
progressing well. This tendency is noticeable especially in workplaces without labor unions.
〇 Those who consider labor unions as necessary are
66.4%, which is a slight decline compared with the last survey ( 70.9%).