In the 2008-2009 recession Japanese firms cut hundreds of thousands of jobs, mostly temporary and dispatch workers whose contracts were cancelled. From 31 December 2008 to 5 January 2009 activists and lawyers who had been advising unemployed dispatch workers, with union support, set up a tent village called Toshikoshi Haken-mura in Hibiya Park in central Tokyo, directly opposite the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Organisers provided food, lodging, counselling and help applying for welfare, and on 2 January 2009 the committee asked the ministry to open its building, which it did. More than 500 workers stayed during the six days with nearly 1,700 volunteers, and the camp drew national media attention to the position of Japan's working poor; temporary shelters were opened for those still needing accommodation after it closed.