Japan's structural economic problems are further alienating its already marginalized populations. Photojournalist Shiho Fukada goes beyond the bright lights of Tokyo to document the country's unemployment crisis: disposable workers who are easily fired and live without a social safety net. They are usually shut out from the rest of the society, living in poverty but rarely acknowledged by their fellow citizens. Fukada's photographs add a human face to widely discussed issues—from day laborers living on the streets to educated women taking banal jobs. She reveals the other side of Japan where alcoholism, hopelessness and suicide are increasingly commonplace.

Project

Shiho Fukada documents the lives of disposable workers in Japan in stories that illustrate the global unemployment crisis and the growing gap between rich and poor that has provoked much turmoil.
May 23, 2012 / Untold Stories
Shiho Fukada
Job creation is one of the biggest challenges Japan faces. A government labor center in Osaka has little to offer unemployed day workers other than mopping the floor at the center.