TOKYO - JAPAN needs 'tenderhearted' capitalism to help socially disadvantaged people during the recession, the country's economics minister said on Monday.

'As there are people who are in weak positions, there should be an aspect of tenderhearted capitalism so that Japan will prosper as a whole,' Economy and Fiscal Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano said in parliament.

The idea of 'the strong winning and the weak losing does not fit with Japanese society', he said.

Japanese companies have announced thousands of layoffs in recent months in response to the country's deepening economic woes.

Contract or temporary employees, who make up an increasingly large share of the workforce following the deregulation of the labour market in recent years, have been by far the hardest hit.

The wave of job cuts has shattered the myth that a job is for life in Asia's largest economy, which traditionally prided itself on a middle-class lifestyle and valued consensus-building above free-wheeling Western-style capitalism. -- AFP