Olympic volunteers believe that paid workers are not doing the same job because they are not in the game

The Tokyo Olympics is in an effort to maintain its volunteer army, with organizers hiring salaried workers to do similar work, the latest hurdle for the long-delayed Games in Japan.

In recent weeks, about 10,000 volunteers have left, according to organizers, out of about 110,000 who are the welcoming face of Tokyo 2020 – in driver jobs, drivers, event staff, first-class assistants and interpreters.

With no foreign spectators welcome and no Covid-19 emergency in Tokyo, the excitement among volunteers is running out, with a pandemic highlighting the difficulties of organizing the world’s biggest sporting event.

The Japanese government and the International Olympic Committee have stressed that the games will start as planned on July 23, despite warnings from fans can spread coronaviruses, and a delayed vaccination campaign, which gave the first dose to only about 13% of the population.

The final blow to the morale of the volunteers came advertisements appeared He pays 1.7 1,700 an hour ($ 15.50) an hour to work as an hourly domestic worker in July and August at “a large-scale international sporting event”.

Although Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa said he would have different obligations to the paid staff of the volunteers last month, among the tasks announced are to guide the audience and take the temperature.

Single ad he said it would be like working in a holiday resort for a “marine sports center”, given food and accommodation. The two agencies called by the Financial Times confirmed that the jobs are with the Olympics.

Takamichi Ueno, a self-employed photographer in Tochigi prefecture, said he is still waiting for his role in the road race and hopes to meet the cyclists. But he said he was upset when he heard that the games were hiring staff to work with volunteers because he had to travel to Fuji International Speedway (where the race ends) and find accommodation on his own. “I don’t agree,” he said.

Retired Katsuji Yoshioka said he stopped volunteering in April as a driver who was asked to register for nine-hour shifts. “They called him a driving assistant,” he said. “They were looking for shifts like 14:00 to 23:00, which means it was hard to get the last train.”

Yoshioka said the work schedule was too tiring for the inexperienced volunteer and that it would be easy to catch Covid as a driver. He felt vindicated when he learned that Tokyo 2020 was hiring salaried staff. “It would be a joke if I did that with the people who were paying for that job,” he said.

In an effort to make the Games safer and to spark people’s feelings, Japan is discussing the need to include all volunteers before the Olympics, moving ahead of others in line. Currently, only people over the age of 65 are vaccinated in Japan, but from June 21, large companies will be allowed to be vaccinated.

“We have agreed to go in that direction,” Marukawa said in response to a parliamentary question this week. “But there are a number of practical issues.”