1. Purpose of this paperThe fishing labor market in Japan seems much more separated into sub-markets of various types of working systems than in many other industries. From a geographical point of view, the regional or territorial separation of the fishing labor market is very interesting. In this study, the territorial bonds of a group of squid fishermen and territorial separation of the labor market at Hachinohe are surveyed. Hachinohe is a large fishing port in the north of Sanriku Coast where is located one of Japan's prosperous fishing regions. Squid fishing is the primary industry at Hachinohe, which is the largest squid fishing port in Japan and perhaps in the world.2. Classification of squid-fishing managersThe squid-fishing labor market at Hachinohe consists of about 2, 500 fishing laborers and 254 squid-fishing boats which are employed and run by 147 managers. These managers are classified into five classes:I. A class of multiple-fishing managers, whose main business is the deep-sea fishing other than squid-fishing. Squid-fishing is a subsidiary business. The average total tonnage of fishing boats managed per manager is about 900t. Most of the large fishing companies belong to this class.II. An upper squid-fishing class. Squid-fishing is the main business. Total tonnage of fishing boats run by each manager is more than 600t.III. A middle squid-fishing class. Squid-fishing is the main business. Total tonnage is 200∼600t.IV. A lower squid-fishing class. Squid-fishing is the main business. Total tonnage is 100∼200t.V. A bottom squid-fishing class. Squid-fishing is the main business. Total tonnage is less than 100t.These five classes can be regarded as the sub-labor markets of squid-fishing at Hachinohe.3. Segregation of territorial groups in the squid-fishing labor market and its territorial separationThe native villages of fishermen on 182 fishing boats, about 70% of the total, were surveyed in order to clarify the territorial composition of crew members of each fishing boat. The fishermen who come from the same villages are defined as members of the same “territorial group”. Then, a segregation index of each group in each of five sub-markets was produced, in order to measure the strength of collectivities of these territorial groups.The findings are summarized as follows:1) There is a general tendency that the lower the classes are, the higher the indices of each group shows. That is, in the sub-market of lower classes (especially IV and V), the crew of a squid fishing boat consists of fishermen who come from very few, often only one, territorial group. On the contrary, the sub-markets of higher classes (I, some of II, III) have very weak territorial separation and fishermen from many territorial groups are mixed on boats.2) The territorial groups which have remarkably high index values are those who come from particular fishing villages in the coastal region to the south of Hachinohe port, that is, Okonai and Uge in Taneichi-machi and Kuki and Kosode in Kuji-shi.3) The laborers belonging to the Hachinohe group are mainly employed by the managers of lower and bottom classes, while the fishermen from Taneichi and Kuji are mainly employed by the upper class (II) managers.The above analysis shaws that the labor market of squid-fishing consists of three sub-markets; (1) A bottom and lower class sub-market, whose laborers are mainly gathered from Hachinohe, (2) An upper class sub-market of which fishermen are from Taneichi and Kuji, and (3) A higher class sub-market of which fishermen come from many territorial groups. As a whole, squid-fishing at Hachinohe has a rather territorially separated labor market because of the firm separation between the first and the second sub-markets.4. Establishment of territotrial separation