TOYOTA CITY, JAPAN — When times were good and the auto business hummed along like a finely tuned engine here in the Detroit of Japan, this tightknit company town was considered a workers' utopia.
City officials were the envy of the nation, nursed by a paternal multinational firm that paid generous wages and showered the community with perks such as a top-notch sports stadium, concert hall and art museum -- all carrying the Toyota brand name.
That was before the worldwide economic pileup that brought widespread personal wreckage to the hometown of the world's mightiest automaker.
Unlike in Detroit, where years of steady decline preceded the current financial crisis, Toyota City's fortunes went from cruise speed to brick wall. Regarded a model of economic prosperity, it endured an unthinkable drop from first in the country to worst in less than nine months.
In this community three hours southwest of Tokyo, it's a phenomenon known as Toyota Shock.
"Toyota City is hurting," said Norio Seki, general director of the city's industrial labor division. "We're in trouble."
Last summer, Toyota was just months away from overtaking General Motors as the world's biggest car company. Jobs were plentiful here in Toyota City, where 80% of workers are employed in the auto industry.
Then Japan slumped into recession. Exports in the world's second-largest economy plummeted at a record pace, and domestic demand dropped alarmingly.
Mammoth blue-chip firms such as Toyota and Sony weren't exempt from the financial carnage. Even before announcing last month that it was facing its first annual net loss in 59 years, Toyota had begun an unprecedented production slowdown that called for reduced shifts and 10-day closures at its 12 domestic plants.
It also fired 9,000 contract workers -- more than 10% of its 85,000 employees -- and warned that more firings could follow, even among once-protected full-time workers.
As a result, Toyota City saw its number of available jobs fall more than 50% between October and December compared with the same period of 2007, officials say.
January brought more bad news: The number of job seekers soared 130% from the same month in 2008, from 1,489 to 2,627. That brought Toyota City unwanted attention as Japan's most out-of-work town.
