The Japan Labor Flash No.64
Email Journal July 3, 2006
Statistical Reports
Main Labor Economic Indicators
TANKAN
Current Topics
The Results of the 2006 Spring Joint Labor Negotiations and Matters
of Concerns for Rengo
Public Policies
Japanese aged 65 and Older Account for More Than 20% of the Population
for the First Time: Reaction of Government
A Revised Equal Employment Opportunity Law Enacted
News Clippings
Shiseido Dispatches Support Workers to Sales Counters
Assistance in Child-Raising: 90% of Firms Surveyed See It as Effective
for Securing Competitive Workers
Special Issue
Draft Revised Labor-Related Laws Drawn up
[JILPT Information]
We, JILPT, compiled the papers provided to the 8th Comparative Labor
Law Seminar held on Feb, 2006 in Tokyo, and published a report titled
"Decentralizing Industrial Relations and the Role of Labor Unions
and
Employee Representatives (English edition)".
You can see complete contents of the report on our web site.
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/reports/jilpt_02.html
Statistical Reports
-Main Labor Economic Indicators-
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/estatis/eshuyo/200607/index.htm
-TANKAN-
Short-term Economic Survey of Entereprises in Japan
-July 3, Monday, released by the Bank of Japan
http://www.boj.or.jp/en/theme/research/stat/tk/index.html
Current Topics
-The Results of the 2006 Spring Joint Labor Negotiations and Matters
of Concerns for Rengo -
On June 7, Nippon Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation) published
its final compiled results of the 2006 spring joint labor negotiations
at large firms and the third-round revised compilation of the results
among small and medium-sized enterprises. According to the survey, which
targets large firms, 235 firms, or 81.6 percent of the total surveyed
(288 firms with 500 or more employees in the major 22 industries)
reported that agreement had been reached in negotiations. The weighted
average pay increase among 128 unions at the 235 companies at which
agreement was achieved, and whose pay increases are found in the survey
was 5,813 yen, an increase of 1.76 percent. The figure was higher by
0.09 percentage points than the final results obtained last year,
representing an average increase on the year of 309 yen.
In the survey addressed to SMEs (750 firms with less than 500 employees
across 17 industries), 396 unions at 52.8 percent of the SMEs surveyed
as a whole had received replies from the companies. The weighted average
pay increase, with the exception of nine unions whose pay hikes are
unknown, was 3,919 yen, an increase of 1.54 percent. The margin of the
increase was higher than last year by 207 yen, or 0.07 percentage points.
President Takagi of Rengo (the Japanese Trade Union Confederation),
welcomed the results of this year's negotiations, noting that they
had achieved positive wage increases for the first time in many years.
He also emphasized that socially fair wage decisions are crucial to
stable development of society and the economy, and that labor and
management in industries and companies should seek out ideal modes of
macroeconomic distribution and wage increases on the basis of full
awareness of corporate social responsibility; accordingly to President
Takagi, the management side is unduly preoccupied with narrow corporate
reasoning and lacks an understanding of the larger picture, concerning
the social nature of wages.
Finally, President Takagi suggested as a task for negotiations next
year that the notion of "wage improvement" should be "addressed
and
some consistency gained," in view of the varying ideas of "improvement"
that exist in the various negotiations that take place each year.
For your reference: "47th Central Committee Held 2006 Spring Struggle
Interim Report Endorsed" June 5, released by Rengo
http://www.jtuc-rengo.org/updates/index.cgi?mode=view&no=191&dir=2006/06
US$=114yen (June 30, 2006)
Public Policies
-Japanese aged 65 and Older Account for More Than 20% of the Population
for the First Time: Reaction of Government-
At a cabinet meeting held on June 2, the government finalized a 2006
White Paper on an aging society. According to this White Paper, the
number of Japanese aged 65 and older hit a record high, 25.6 million
(24.88 million in the previous year), reaching 20.04 percent of the total
population, above 20 percent for the first time (19.5% in the previous
year). The workforce aged 60 to 64 totaled 4.65 million (accounting for
7.0% of the workforce as a whole) and those aged 65 and older 5.04
million (7.6%), the respective proportions having continued to increase
since 1980 when the former was 4.4 percent and the latter 4.9 percent.
In line with this, the government earmarked 13.267 trillion yen for
measures to cope with an "aging society" in the general account
budget
for this fiscal year. More precisely, 6.8255 trillion yen will be
allocated for employment and income policies; 6.14 trillion yen for
health and welfare; 21.6 billion yen for learning opportunities and
social participation; 13.2 billion yen for living environment; and 26.5
billion yen for promotion of surveys and studies, etc.
Of the major measures newly launched this fiscal year in April, the
government, in line with the enforcement of the revised Law concerning
Stabilization of Employment of Older Persons, now obliges employers,
for example, to raise the mandatory retirement age to 65 on a gradual
basis, and to adopt a continued employment system. (For details, see
Special Issue, No.60 of JLF). The White Paper states that from this
fiscal year the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare will give employers
appropriate guidance, advice, and, if necessary, recommendations.
-A Revised Equal Employment Opportunity Law Enacted-
On June 15, a bill revising the Equal Employment Opportunity Law
submitted to the Diet on March 7 was approved by a plenary session
of the Lower House, and duly enacted. The revision strengthens the
regulations concerning sexual discrimination: the subject of protection
from discrimination is now both men and women, rather than the latter
only. The revised law stipulates that employers will be banned from
using "indirect forms of sex discrimination" - that is, from
setting
criteria for hiring employees based on height, weight, body strength
and other factors which lead to virtual sexual discrimination although
they do not directly refer to gender. It has also expanded the definitions
of "disadvantageous" treatment to cover not only dismissals
but also the
penalizing of workers who become pregnant or give birth.
News Clippings
-Shiseido Dispatches Support Workers to Sales Counters-
In October, Shiseido Co., a leading company in the cosmetics industry,
is to start hiring dispatched workers to supplement beauty staff members
selling products face-to-face at the counters of department stores and
other shops, to enable full-time employees to work shorter hours and
devote more time to taking care of their children. Under this system,
which is new in the industry, the company aims to reduce the number of
employees leaving the company due to child-raising pressures, with a
further goal being to improve services to customers.
Shiseido will hire approximately 500 workers across the country mainly
from among former employees and students via branches of an affiliate,
Shiseido Sales Co.
Under the scheme for child-raising hours which the company adopted
in 1991, employees are able to shorten daily working hours up to two
hours until their children enter primary school, and currently
approximately 200 of around 10,000 beauty staff members are taking
advantage of this scheme. However, with business hours of retail
outlets becoming longer, the scheme has faced various difficulties:
some employees are unable to take advantage of it, and sometimes the
burden on employees who do not have children has proved to be too great.
(Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun, June)
-Assistance in Child-Raising: 90% of Firms Surveyed See It as Effective
for Securing Competitive Workers-
Nihon Keizai Shimbun's survey concerning the support for the balancing
of work and family life shows that as many as 87.7 percent of the firms
surveyed were acknowledging that it would help secure talented workers.
With competition among firms for talented workers intensifying, assistance
in child-raising has become a business requirement that has a great
impact on firms' competitiveness. 96 percent of the firms surveyed
replied that the adoption of support measures would promote effective
use of the female workforce. Benefits of the introduction of such measures
include, it seems, an increase in the number of applicants of college
graduates.
Last autumn, new schemes launched by Nipponkoa Insurance Co. Ltd.,
included a "U-turn scheme," whereby the firm promised to hire
former
employees who were compelled to leave the company in order to give
birth or raise children: the proportion of females among new recruits
on the career track who joined the company this spring sharply
increased to about 30 percent from the figure, 3.5 percent, marked in
fiscal year 2004.
While the proportion of firms with male employees currently taking
child-care leave was 41.4 percent (an increase of 16 percentage points
from the survey carried out in February, 2005), nearly half of them,
44.6 percent, had only one such worker in the year. The proportion of
firms where four or more male employees were taking child-care leave
accounted for a mere nine percent.
The survey was conducted in May, 2006, contacting 2,517 leading
companies listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange or
unlisted. Valid responses were returned by 401 firms.
(Nihon Keizai Shimbun, June)
Special Issue
-Draft Revised Labor-Related Laws Drawn up-
The Study Group for Labor Conditions of the Labor Policy Council
has presented a preliminary draft of revisions of labor related laws,
which was scheduled to be compiled in this fiscal year, being aimed
to be put before the Diet for approval in 2007.
Continued on;
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/archives/emm/2003/no.64/64_si.html
