The Japan Labor Flash No.54
Email Journal February 1, 2006
The Japan Labor Flash Reader Questionnaire
Statistical Reports
Main Labor Economic Indicators
Current Topics
Some 28,000 Business Establishments Employ Foreign Workers
Nippon Keidanren's Questionnaire Survey on Corporate Ethics and
Behavior
Public Policies
Liaison Conference of Related Ministries Draws up Comprehensive
Measures for Suicide Prevention
Government-Labor Conference to Review Basic Labor Rights and Other
Broader Issues of Reform Affecting Civil Servants
News Clippings
Pola Expands Scheme to Support Good Balance between Working and
Family Lives
Nagoya University to Actively Take on Female Researchers
Special Issue
Four Requirements for Dismissal in Line With Corporate Restructuring;
and Need for Discussion in Good Faith
[JILPT Information]
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Statistical Reports
-Main Labor Economic Indicators-
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/estatis/eshuyo/200602/index.htm
Current Topics
-Some 28,000 Business Establishments Employ Foreign Workers-
On January 22, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released
a report concerning a survey on the employment of foreign residents
in Japan (as of June 1, 2005). The survey was addressed to 155,009
business establishments - including all business establishments with
50 or more employees and some with less than 50 employees. A total
of 94,143 valid responses were received. Of these, 28,017 establishments
hire foreign workers as direct employees, or in the form of dispatch,
contract or other indirect employment. The figure is greater than
that recorded in the same survey last year, when 24,678 companies
reported that they hire foreign workers. In the survey this year,
those in direct employment totalled 198,380 (in 25,106 establishments)
and those in indirect employment 144,891 (in 5,889 establishments) -
increases of 179,966 and 132,436, respectively, from the previous year.
By industry, the largest proportion of foreign workers, more than 50
percent, were in the manufacturing sector, the largest proportion
working for business establishments with 100 to 299 employees.
-Nippon Keidanren's Questionnaire Survey on Corporate Ethics and
Behavior-
Nippon Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation) conducted a
questionnaire survey concerning corporate ethics and corporate
behavior addressed to employees responsible for the promotion of
corporate ethics (1,558 companies with a valid response rate of
33.6 percent), and has published the results. The survey showed that,
of the companies and organizations surveyed, 86.6 percent replied
that they had already drawn up guidelines or something similar on
corporate behavior; 80.5 percent had already created posts of
"corporate ethics officers"; and 89.3 percent had already
established a section or department in charge of corporate ethics
(of which 61.8 percent were concurrently responsible for different
duties).
To be ready for the enforcement, scheduled in April, 2006, of
a law concerning the protection of informants for the public interest,
79.4 percent of the firms surveyed replied that they had already set
up a helpline (counseling and means of access for informants) on
corporate ethics. Matters reported to such helplines included sexual
harassment and other problems in the workplace (81.5%); the "illegal
acts committed by the section or department to which the informants
belonged" (81.0%); "illegal acts committed by particular individuals"
(80.0%); and "matters concerning the protection of personal information"
(61.1%).
Future challenges include measures to promote further utilization
of the corporate ethics officer system, expansion of the availability
of the service to group companies as well as overseas affiliates,
diversification of the means of access to the services and ensuring
reliability of service, and expansion of the availability of the
services to stakeholders as a whole.
Public Policies
-Liaison Conference of Related Ministries Draws up Comprehensive
Measures for Suicide Prevention-
As raised in previous issues, the number of suicides in Japan has
exceeded 30,000 each year for seven consecutive years. This means
that there were some 25.3 suicides per 100,000 people, a conspicuously
high ratio compared to developed countries in Europe and America.
Behind the majority of such suicides reportedly lie social factors
involving, for example, overwork, bankruptcies, loss of jobs due to
corporate restructuring, social isolation, or bullying.
Under such circumstances, in December 2005 a liaison conference
for suicide prevention organized by related ministries and agencies
identified comprehensive measures to be taken by the government for
suicide prevention. Specific measures include (i) promotion of fact
-finding analysis on suicides; (ii) dissemination of correct
understanding concerning suicide prevention; (iii) establishment of
counseling systems by region for various age groups - schoolchildren,
workers, the elderly, etc., and support for the training of counselors;
(iv) care for persons who have made suicide attempts; (v) care for
family members or close associates of those who have committed suicide;
and (vi) strengthening of cooperation among related ministries and
agencies, individual prefectures, and relevant organizations.
The liaison conference's short-term target is to bring the number
of suicides over the next decade to around the level they stood
(25,000 or so) prior to the recent surge in numbers.
-Government-Labor Conference to Review Basic Labor Rights and Other
Broader Issues of Reform Affecting Civil Servants-
On January 16, the government and Rengo (Japanese Trade Union
Confederation) held a conference concerning reform affecting civil
servants, and agreed to discuss the civil service system further
from a broad viewpoint and with an eye to the granting of basic
labor rights to civil servants. The government side was represented
by State Minister in charge of Administrative Reform Koki Chuma,
Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Heizo Takenaka, and
Health, Labour and Welfare Minister Jiro Kawasaki; and the Rengo
side by General Secretary, Nobuaki Koga and others. This was the
first government-labor conference which the three ministers had
attended since May 2004. Although some newspapers reported that the
conference saw a consensus that a decision would be made concerning
the granting of basic labor rights to civil servants during the
ordinary session of the Diet, Minister Chuma expressed doubts,
indicating that discussions were not likely to reach any conclusion
until a bill for the promotion of regulatory reforms (tentative name)
to be submitted to the Diet during the current session was passed.
In view of pressure from the International Labour Organization,
which has advised the Japanese government twice in the past to review
the system and will hold its general conference in June, a government
-labor conference will be held again in March.
News Clippings
-Pola Expands Scheme to Support Good Balance between Working and
Family Lives-
In January, Pola Cosmetics Inc., revised its scheme of support for
employees in achieving a balance between work and family life.
The revision reflects the results of a questionnaire survey addressed
to all its employees (1,539) and of hearings targeting users of the
current scheme.
Major revisions include the extension of the periods of maternity
and family-care leave, and of flex-time; introduction of a subsidy
system to offset the expenses of raising children (10,000 yen per
month until the time children are three years of age); and introduction
of paid nursing-care and family-care leave (five days per year); some
of these measures still being unusual in similar systems in other
companies. The revised scheme also supports employees who have taken
leave and are returning to the workplace by providing, for example,
a registration system for those who wish to return after leave and
a system of support for workers on leave in resuming work.
(Fuji Sankei Business Eye, January)
-Nagoya University to Actively Take on Female Researchers-
In December, 2005, Nagoya University published a guideline for
"positive action in recruitment of academic staff members."
In an
across-campus effort to raise the ratio of female academic staff
members, the university has stated in the recruitment information
page of its website that it will actively hire women if they are
recognized as having equivalent qualifications to their male
counterparts (including those related to academic and educational
performance, social contributions, and personality).
(JILPT E-mail Magazine, Japanese edition, December)
Special Issue
-Four Requirements for Dismissal in Line With Corporate Restructuring;
and Need for Discussion in Good Faith-
With individual disputes becoming the commonest form of labor
dispute, persons in charge of personnel affairs and labor management
in private firms are being required to study the handling of such
disputes more and more carefully. Since private firms have commonly
adopted a lifetime employment system, joining a company after working
elsewhere has generally been perceived as disadvantageous to workers,
and dismissal therefore has been considered the most serious issue and,
in fact, the largest proportion of labor disputes have concerned
dismissals. This situation - the proportion of cases concerning
dismissals - remains the same in recent years, with individual disputes
increasing in number.
Continued on;
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/archives/emm/2003/no.54/54_si.html
