Japanese Living in Capsule Hotels

According to the NY Times, many Japanese are now staying at capsule hotels because of the bad economy.  Capsule hotels, as you can see from the picture above, are “hotels” that rent out small boxes where people can sleep.  There are so many people who have moved out from real homes that the capsule hotels are now allowing people to pay monthly and to register the hotels as their official addresses.  In the past, these hotels were mostly patronized by salarymen who had missed the last train.

A few thoughts.  First, I thought the rate of $640/month for rent was high.  I don’t remember how much I paid to live in Tokyo, but I think it was less than that, and I got a full room.  Granted I had to share the kitchen and bath with fifteen other people (not at the same time!), but I definitely got more than a box to sleep in.  My room may have been a “be kind to foreigners” type of deal though.

Second, the article says:

The jobless rate, at 5.2 percent, is at a record high, and the number of households on welfare has risen sharply. The country’s 15.7 percent poverty rate is one of the highest among industrialized nations.

This is going to sound hella ignorant, but isn’t a 5.2% jobless rate good?  Our national U.S. unemployment rate is over 10%.  Our Oregon unemployment rate is 11.3%, over double that of Japan.  And we don’t even count the people who have simply given up on looking for work.  I thought that anything between 3 and 5% was supposed to be considered a natural level of unemployment.  Any economists out there?

Hopefully this global recession will end soon.

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