Japan nursing care bankruptcies hit record high for Jan.-June period

amid rising prices and labor shortages, a survey by a credit research company showed Thursday.

Did they even thought to raise the wage? Nursing care people only get around 200 thousands yen per month, that before tax, pension and pension. While those nurse need to provide care for those elder that can be demanding.

https://job.minnanokaigo.com/guide/salary/

Shouldn't 10 million yen in dollars not be $6,200 but $62,000?

The number of infirm and elderly are rising yet businesses are failing?

So, what happens to the elderly not placed in a nursing home or receiving care at home?

It is hospitals that are receiving more and more elderly patients that are unable to look after themselves.

What happens to patients which receive basic care and are able to be discharged?

Their families are reluctant to accept them back home and care homes are full to the rafters.

There should be help for family members taking on the financial burden of caring for the elderly.

The government needs to lift its spending on the aged in Japan to take account of rising numbers.

Exactly. The demands of the job requires just compensation but unfortunately those that contribute the most to society are relegated to being paid the least. Care givers, teachers, nurses, versus politicians, TV talents, pro sports athletes...

LagunaToday  07:32 am JST

Shouldn't 10 million yen in dollars not be $6,200 but $62,000?

probably why they went bankrupt. not very good with numbers.

Many small day-service/day care providers are banking on getting government subsidies to survive, and it is not unheard of either about some that provide "less than quality" service.

Finding qualified staff, and paying them a living wage is a serious problem.

Similar problems existed for decades with the child care industry, until they started paying the teachers and care givers a living wage.

The rise in failures involving liabilities exceeding 10 million yen ($6,200) comes as competition to secure enough workers intensifies, with more new entrants seeking to tap into the rising demand for nursing care services due to Japan's rapidly aging population, according to Tokyo Shoko Research.

One hopes that immigration might play a role ...

Many small day-service/day care providers are banking on getting government subsidies to survive, and it is not unheard of either about some that provide "less than quality" service.

They also depend on cheap labor to do really demanding job, however those young people now can go easily to other industry. So day care providers now having difficulty to do their things like they did in the past.

an aging society with out of control price gouging... gee what a shock

10 million yen is just over the average student debt in UK, which I am told is 45k GBP (9 million yen). That's not a big sum for a business, and a strange place to put a starting line demarcating businesses going bankrupt.

I would imagine most nursing home owners have much more than 10m yen in assets. Going bankrupt means workers and creditors going unpaid, and should not be an easy way of not paying people.

Bad News for everyone.

With all the Health care and Nursing Care taxes the government is collecting one would think that these nursing homes could get the funds needed so they can run a profitable business.

Obviously they are not.

And you have thousands of very capable and friendly nurses and caregivers in the Philippines and Indonesia just dying to live and work here in Japan.

But you give them this incredibly difficult Japanese and kanji exam and boot them back to their countries if they can't pass it within three years.

Instead, this govt. keeps playing around with expensive robots and machines instead of investing in people.

A problem created (once again) by this inept government.

And you have thousands of very capable and friendly nurses and caregivers in the Philippines and Indonesia just dying to live and work here in Japan.

Instead, this govt. keeps playing around with expensive robots and machines instead of investing in people.

A problem created (once again) by this inept government.

Those foreign nurses find Japan attractive when Yen was strong when period like prior pandemic. Now JGovt need to consider their currency, even cheap labor won't find Japan attractive again. We can see those nursing home when bankrupt, they just don't have people to run it.

And yet they keep building more senior care facilities. I live in an area of Tokyo famous or senior care facilities. Whenever some big construction project starts nearby, that's usually the first guess as to what it will be and often correct. I was just thinking the other day that someday in the future, after the boomer generation, all these facilities will have trouble staying in business. I guess it was sooner than later, sadly.

amid rising prices and labor shortages

Not many young Japanese wants to become caregivers so these companies look to professionals from Asian countries like Philippines or Indonesia, who mostly are licensed nurses back at their home countries. Many of them quit though when they find out about the hard working condition, fairly low wage plus a declining Yen as many of them send a large portion of their wages back to their home countries.

Bringing families here in Japan to live with them will be financially difficult as well as uncertainty due to their limited years of visa validity.

A high percentage of the caregivers at such facilities are females above age 50, who gravitate to such jobs due to their own difficult economic circumstances. Based on the population curve, there will be fewer and fewer of such women in the years ahead. Who's going to do the work then?

Raise the workers salary!

I would imagine most nursing home owners have much more than 10m yen in assets. Going bankrupt means workers and creditors going unpaid, and should not be an easy way of not paying people.

Yes something doesnt add up.... this is the one sector that you would think should be doing well, considering the demographic shift and where most of the county's savings are locked up........ perhaps owners obfuscating cashflows then going "bankrupt"....

My wife works at a Nursing Home... quite often the thing that kills profitability is building maintenance and equipment breaking down. If it is an old badly designed facility you're pretty much looking at bankruptcy unless you were able to put enough money away to cover building a new one.

Spot on kurisupisu

There should be help for family members taking on the financial burden of caring for the elderly.

This! My wife's mother takes "care" of her mother who is 88 and she is never home! It took some convincing to finally get them to take up one of those (day services) because I was starting to get worried about the state of the grandmother's health. There's nothing wrong with her organs or anything because her and her elder siblings seem to have super genes, but it is obvious that there is something wrong in the brain department and the mother who is never home doesn't seem to understand that this is likely an issue that didn't just start a few months ago when they came to live with us temporarily. She is never home to observe the behavior of what the grandma does all day which I got to do so during the time they were here. The grandma was eating cup noodles for lunch, tries to order KFC any chance she can get, barely drinking water, mostly sitting and watching tv all day with naps here and there, getting zero exercise even though she can still walk, not able to bathe on her own even though she is capable, has everyone do things for her even though she can do it herself and makes excuses that she can't do it, and yet the mother wonders why all of a sudden she's showing Alzheimer's like symptoms after living with us. I noticed the grandmother had been repeating the same thing over and over again years ago and didn't think much of it until I finally got to be around her, so I am positive it has been present throughout these years and it was just unnoticed.

The mother (now 60) leaves to go to work around 6:00 am, starts her job at 8:30 am (needs to be there earlier for some reason, from what I hear they still do 朝礼 or morning assembly and ラジオ体操 or morning stretch) and comes home at around 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm. Her job is at a relatively known company, pretty big in size, and yet she is being treated like a slave. I even saw how much she was making when applying for a new apartment and it is just laughable. I kept telling her that she should consult with someone higher up and tell them that she has someone to care for and will need to get off at 定時 or (on time) to which she is always hesitant to do so, saying things like her colleagues who are similar in age are on the same boat and they still come to work and stay long hours because 周りに迷惑かけたくない or (don't want to be a nuisance to other around me). But her kacho is having a field day everyday by coming to work when he feels like it, taking days off out of no-where, only person in that group who works from home, doesn't do much work and is essentially acting like he's typing or doing something, shopping on Rakuten during work hours, etc.

So my point is, I am almost positive there are many others out there who are in a similar situation (as stated above where there are colleagues in a similar position) as my wife's mother who are essentially allowing their parents to co-habit with them and are not able to care for them due to the madness that is the working culture. We need a good work life balance culture for full-time employees implemented in Japan to help not only families caring for elders, but also those caring for their children (especially those with both parents working). If you are not in a manager position, you should not have to work long hours, and if a company that employs thousands of employees can't manage to keep afloat just because you aren't working overtime, there is obviously workplace inefficiencies that can be addressed to reduce this.

Working part-time is no longer an option since cost of living is now unbearable, and day care/ short stay services aren't exactly a great solution either since they are abusing caregivers which will likely lead to lowered quality services.

Companies need to stop taking advantage of the 我慢社会 or society of patience and the しょうがない attitudes of the loyal Japanese workers.

What happens to patients which receive basic care and are able to be discharged?

Their families are reluctant to accept them back home and care homes are full to the rafters.

There should be help for family members taking on the financial burden of caring for the elderly.

This is the reason why the Japanese social structure and society as a whole is failing because of this mindset of creating excuses related to money. If a working class person would consider his/her parents who raised them to be independent, to be a financial burden at their advanced age, that’s just as bad as saying they failed their parents.

I agree that in addition to pension payments the government could alleviate the financial strain from caring for the elderly, just like how they’ve embarked on a campaign of subsidizing childcare. However, this issue with caregiver homes at capacity or on the verge of bankruptcy originally stems from how far removed the younger generation in Japan are from caring for their own parents when they reach an age where they may find it difficult to care for themselves. And we wonder why up until this very day, there are still cases of elderly people with grown up kids in the cities passing away in their lonely homes and being unnoticed for days.

Remember that old age will come for everyone, how would you like to be treated when you’re old and infirm with kids that call you three times a month and show up once in 6 months? Not all problems stem from bad government policies.

I wonder how much the nursing homes charge per week for a full time resident, this is based just on a elderly person, and what do dementia nursing homes charge? In the UK normal nursing homes start off at around £1400 per week (280,000 yen) and dementia patients are around four times this price, possibly the nursing home might have to up there prices, at what cost? Yes the staff will get paid more, but can residents afford the price hike, and what will happen to them if they can't pay? Will they be invited to leave? Will the government subsidise the nursing home?

hooktrunk2

And yet they keep building more senior care facilities. I live in an area of Tokyo famous or senior care facilities. Whenever some big construction project starts nearby, that's usually the first guess as to what it will be and often correct.

In my suburban Osaka city, I drove past a huge construction site recently. I assumed it was going to be a high-rise mansion, based on the short distance from the train station. But, the sign said senior home! It's only going to be a few stories tall. But, it is massive in footprint. There are also two huge senior homes right in my immediate neighborhood.

I have a feeling the ones going under are smaller, less expensive ones. I think there's a pretty strong market for higher-end (as in expensive) facilities.

It’s easy to become a ‘rich country’ if you don’t spend money on aged care, child care and health care.

Nursing homes going bankrupt while Kashida spend trillions of yen in military equipment and donating billions to wars Japan has no involvement in...(yet). Look after your own first Kashida!!

The only way nursing homes could be going bankrupt in aging Japan is if regulators did something bad to the industry.

This would be a good place for the government to spend money -- subsidize wages to create decent-paying jobs (for people who then become consumers) and secure care for the growing ranks of elderly. Seems like a win-win.

Interesting!

¥10 million!

Isn't that just about the amount of no interest loans most mid size businesses could get during the pandemic?

Now that money needs to be repaid?

I know plenty of businesses not nursing homes that took those loans and they now find themselves unable to repay plus pay salaries, expenses, have enough money to live on and pay rent etc....

This care homes situation seems to mirror the same bankruptcy stats that were released just a month ago!

That's what I have been saying, Welcome more low skilled workers than skilled workers.

There won't be any shortage for low paid jobs such as nursing, cleaners, security whereas foreign skilled workers will take/look for more better/high paid jobs that would have been given to own nationals.

Britain will also have same problem.

A nurse getting £27 a hour whereas a caretaker gets £12 a hour. That is just unfair. A caretaker is the one who cares the patient like taking care of their own children for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Not a big surprise when already hearing in the news about insufficient and small meal portions in those facilities. This means there is soon much more similar to come.

Present LDP regime who make little of even the lives of social vulnerables reduced remuneration of care workers despite insufficiency of workers.

On the other hand, they waste billions or trillions taxes only benefiting large corporations who donate contribution to LDP.

The problem in Japan that isn't present in many other countries like the USA, Canada and UK, is that for even the most basic work in a care home one needs to pass a minimum certification.

Plenty of schools in the Philippines have courses for this certificate including Japanese language courses but very few are able to pass the official Japanese government exams.

It isn't that they didn't understand or learn the essential information, it is nearly 100% due to the language skills.

These people can readily communicate in Japanese but even the Japanese have a difficult time with the exam does to the typical government system of wording things just to make it harder.

In the UK it is not mandatory to have any formal education in the field, but it helps in getting a job, the same applies to the USA and Canada.

I know several students that would be very happy for a night shift or evening shift in a care home this includes Japanese and non Japanese, but they cannot because it requires a minimum certification and none have the time to study at university and take a certificate course and exams.

Not everyone needs a certificate as long as a head staff member does.

The same problem exists at the special needs centre near my place, they care for Autistic children mostly after school!

They have had a help needed sign for years.

My daughter years ago while in university went over and was told the position requires a care giver certificate.

All they need is an extra few people to help watch over the children, the trained staff will still be present at all times!

Lower the standards let the care facilities hire and train as long as a minimum trained staff is present.

Japan likes to complicate things, the same for teachers.

If a teacher in Saitama wants to change to teach in Chiba they have to take the Chiba test despite having been teaching for years in Saitama!

In my inaka area, old folks homes are the big employers of many of the people in my town.

The whole rehabilitation and senior care industry is always advertising and looking for more people.

There aren't too many other jobs out here and this is one where the demographics should ensure more business in the years to come.

The govt needs to cut down on ODA and funnel more money into childcare, education and retirement homes. Take care of your own house. People are getting more desperate.

I've taught my children to save and invest. It should be common sense. Then you can pay for your future. Old folk stupid enough to pile cash under their bed are reaping what they sowed.

I've taught my children to save and invest. It should be common sense.

No, it's not common sense. The economy always needs both groups, immediately and much consuming people and those saving or investing ones. It is wrong to play the ones against the others. Look, if everyone only saves a big part of earnings, then the companies don't sell anything, go bankrupt and also all investments will of course fail. That is hopefully common sense in a system called capitalism, which is intrinsically based on growth, consumption and investments into those growing companies, not on degrowth, everyone saving money for nothing and failing investments due to low orders of products and services.

The rise in failures involving liabilities exceeding 10 million yen ($6,200) comes as competition to secure enough workers intensifies, with more new entrants seeking to tap into the rising demand for nursing care services due to Japan's rapidly aging population, according to Tokyo Shoko Research.

The good news is that a big part of the reason for the bancruptcies is intensifying competition for workers.

Those who have the worst compensation for workers aren't getting enough workers

Bankruptcies will probably continue at record rates for the near future as the nursing care industry is most vulnerable to rising prices as they can't easily pass along increased operational costs to customers like other businesses

ianToday  02:14 pm JST

Bankruptcies will probably continue at record rates for the near future as the nursing care industry is most vulnerable to rising prices as they can't easily pass along increased operational costs to customers like other businesses

This is a problem. Land and caretakers cost what they cost. Price controls don't change that.