Pink Slip in Japan: A Trip Into Psychological Abyss : Work: In a land of lifetime job security, being laid off is particularly devastating. Middle-aged men suffer most.

Noboru Hashimoto spends most of his time these days as a virtual prisoner inside his own home. In this land of “full employment,” he doesn’t want the neighbors to know he has lost his job.

“In the daytime I try to hide in the house. Only on weekends am I free to go outside,” the former office manager said with a forced laugh that could not hide his pain. “It’s better not to tell people that I’m jobless. It gives the impression that I did something wrong, or that I’m not capable of keeping my job.”

As Japan’s economic downturn drags along in its third year, a growing number of people are feeling the pain of unemployment, which now stands at 2.8%--enviable by U.S. standards but the highest here in six years. As the new year begins with no sign of an economic turnaround, many fear that it will bring an unprecedented wave of layoffs.

In an already gloomy Japan, the specter of rising unemployment sends shock waves through society, for lifetime job security carries an unhappy flip side: Losing one’s job cuts much deeper into the psyche than in places where layoffs and job-hopping are more common.

While acknowledging that laid-off U.S. workers also suffer a loss of self-esteem, Tokyo psychiatrist Minouru Arai recently explained why being fired here often means plunging into a psychological abyss.

The grief is somewhat akin to that of a child being kicked out of his home by his parents, said Arai, who teaches at the Juntendo University School of Medicine in Tokyo.

This profound sense of loss, of being thrown away by someone who is supposed to love you, has its roots in what the Japanese call amae , Arai said.

“ Amae is translated as ‘dependency,’ but its real meaning is a little different,” Arai said. “It’s like an umbilical cord, or the wordless relationship between a child and its mother. How do employees express amae ? They work overtime even when it’s not necessary. For some, the office is a very comfortable place to be. When work is over, they socialize with their colleagues. Socializing with one’s boss is like a relationship between parent and child.”

A layoff may be less of a shock to young workers and married women working sporadically to supplement family income, Arai said. But joblessness is particularly devastating for middle-aged men who are increasingly targeted in the current downsizing.

“The chances are so small for an old man like me,” lamented Hashimoto, who is 56. “It’s almost 100% certain that I cannot find a job at my old salary. . . . Some nights I cannot sleep at all. I think at night: ‘If I don’t get a job for another month, or another two months, there’s no hope. What shall I do?’ ”

Pain, anger and a sense of betrayal are common among job seekers at the Tokyo Human Resources Center, a clearinghouse for unemployed middle managers seeking new positions. Middle-aged people who were hired into companies under the lifetime employment system have never changed jobs, said Seiji Takahashi, director of the center. “They think switching jobs is a crime.”

Then, Takahashi added, there is the fall in status.

“If you compare what’s available with what they had before, there’s a huge gap in income and job description. They have to do less important work. When we explain this to them, some get angry because their pride is hurt. But that’s reality. They’re suddenly facing the real world.”

Even when a good job becomes available, “it’s filled within a week,” complained Atsushi Hirayama, 50, who lost his job as a real estate sales manager because of the prolonged recession. “The competition is really fierce.”

In Hashimoto’s case, a 30-year career in international trade and travel saw him rise to a $100,000-a-year office manager’s position. In the expensive Tokyo area, that salary simply made him solidly middle class. It was enough for him to buy a nice suburban home, but he never managed to put away a lot of savings.

Then in July, the recession’s effects hit him. In a round of cost-cutting, he was suddenly fired.

“I received 30 days’ notice, but I told my wife only two or three days before my termination with the company,” he said. “She was so shocked, she fell sick in bed for a couple of weeks.”

Now, with four years to go before he starts to draw any pension income--and five years of payments left on his mortgage--Hashimoto and his wife face a financial crisis.

“Our savings will be gone in two more months,” Hashimoto said. “After February, maybe I will have to ask my wife to find a job. She hasn’t complained. She just feels sad. She doesn’t say much about it, but I know she worries very much.”

Hashimoto said he is looking for work at about half his former salary, but employment counselors tell him that is not realistic. It may be necessary, he said, to accept an even lower-paying job, perhaps as a deliveryman, a bus driver or a salesman. But if he does that, he said, he won’t be able to keep up with payments on his mortgage.

The hopelessness that older workers feel about their prospects of landing another decent job is fueled by the age and sex discrimination that is widely accepted as natural in Japan.

A common view is that older employees must be paid more, in deference to their age, but that they are less flexible, harder to train and have fewer good working years left to serve the company.

Newspaper advertisements and job-office listings usually place an upper age limit on job applicants, which may be 25 or 30 for secretarial and clerical jobs aimed at women, or up to 35 or 40 for work usually done by men. The best fast-track jobs in large corporations go almost exclusively to new graduates of highly ranked universities.

Against this backdrop, sudden layoffs are less traumatic for younger men like Eiji Shimura, 35, a bachelor who lost his job as a used-car salesman in a recession-inspired cutback. With unemployment insurance good for three months, Shimura said, “I’m planning to relax for a month. . . . Something will work out.”

Most Japanese are covered by unemployment insurance, with benefits good for three to 10 months, depending on age and how long they have been paying into the system.

Shimura, who has had four jobs since high school, said he hopes that this time he can find work offering a long-term future.

“It’s OK to change jobs between 20 and 35, but I’m right at the limit now, and I should find a job that I’m going to keep a long time,” he said.

He said, however, that he is under no illusions that he will ever enjoy total job security.

“With the recession, companies are thinking how to cut expenses,” he said. “They start by reducing working hours, then they think of cutting personnel. They target older employees, mostly middle-level managers or desk workers, who aren’t really needed very much. . . . I myself have to be careful not to become excess baggage.”

Thus far, unemployment hasn’t changed Shimura’s life too much. He lives in the same tiny one-room apartment, which he rents for $425 a month. His friends take it in stride when they learn he lost his job.

“It’s something that happens often these days,” he said. “Their reaction is just, ‘Oh, really?’ ”

Hashimoto, the former office manager, has found a very different reaction from his friends and acquaintances.

“Gradually, my old friends are drifting away from me, because there is no reason to meet with me now,” he said. “I have nothing--no power, no influence. I feel very lonely. So I can maybe tell younger people: Please prepare money for when you get old and lose your job. The only thing that can support you is money--not friends, but your own money.”

If it were not for his financial problems and social isolation, Hashimoto said he could easily enjoy his present life of leisure. But Hashimoto enjoys more outside interests than most Japanese men, including an ability to play guitar that he picked up during his college days.

Since he lost his job, he has made minor repairs to his house, bought bookshelves and organized his books, selling those he didn’t want anymore. He’s even planning to go to the dentist, something he never seemed to find time for when he was working.

“I can read newspapers and books. I can do whatever I want,” he said. “When I was working, I had no time to touch the piano or guitar, or listen to records. . . . If I had enough savings, this would be very comfortable. We Japanese hard-workers should experience something like this.”

But Eiichi Kamada, a 62-year-old whose typesetting job was eliminated by computerization, is more the typical Japanese man who is suddenly unemployed after spending many years absorbed only in work. He has no hobbies and no outside interests. He has never cooked or done any work around the house.

The wives of men like Kamada must endure not only a sudden loss of financial security, but also an unhappy husband who has always been accustomed to being waited on at home--and who now is home more than ever before.

“It’s not good for a husband and wife to be together all the time,” Kamada said when asked how his wife has coped with having him around so much.

“For your health, it’s better to work, but nothing’s available. . . . If you’re over 60, the only work you can get is things like being a janitor or guard.”

Life has been “boring” since he lost his job, Kamada added. “I spend most of my time going for walks.”

Times researchers Chiaki Kitada and Megumi Shimizu in Tokyo contributed to this report.