TOKYO - AS JAPAN feels the pain of the global slowdown, a small city on Tuesday took the unusual step of offering jobs to laid-off workers and even letting them stay at campsites.

Kitsuki, a city of 33,000 people on Japan's southern island of Kyushu, started accepting applications on Tuesday from the 1,100 contract workers being dismissed by subsidiaries of office equipment and camera maker Canon Inc.

'We have received many inquiries from Canon workers, many of them saying they need a job immediately as the year-end approaches,' a city official said.

The city was still working out what jobs to give the workers but said it would offer each of them work for one month between now and March.

Temporary-contract workers are bearing the brunt of Japan's economic downturn as companies cut thousands of jobs. Many also lose their places to stay as they lived in corporate housing.

Japan's government has proposed offering loans to laid-off contract workers but has failed to stop a growing number of companies from eliminating jobs.

Canon, often hailed as a success story in Japan's recovery from a recession a decade ago, has joined other major Japanese manufacturers that are cutting output and jobs to cope with the global economic downturn.

The 1,100 dismissed employees worked for two Canon subsidiaries - Oita Canon Materials Inc in Kitsuki and Oita Canon Inc in an adjacent city. -- AFP