The JIL Labor Flash Vol.15
Email Journal 15.03.2002
Statistical Reports
Recent Statistical Survey Reports
Current Topics
Will companies maintain their lifetime employment and seniority
systems? ...etc
Public Policies
Draft of the Laws Related to Reform of the Medical System
News Clippings
Japan IBM's 2,000 employees-slightly under 10% of the total work
force-to work mostly at home ...etc
Special Issue
Japan no longer a major exporter
Statistical Reports
-Recent Statistical Survey Reports-
Features
Survey on the Way of Diverse Employment Type
Basic Survey on Wage Structure Preliminary Report by Prefectures (2001)
Wage Survey on Outdoor Workers by occupation (Construction Industry,
Skill Occupations) (2001) ...etc
http://www.jil.go.jp/estatis/e2002-02.htm
Current Topics
-Will companies maintain their lifetime employment and seniority
systems?-
The Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun conducted in February a survey of
companies listed in Section 1 of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Responses
sent in from the 805 companies show that the lifetime employment and
seniority systems-long considered typically Japanese employment customs
-face an uncertain future.
Only 19.5% of those companies that responded said that they would
continue the lifetime employment systems into the future, while 53.9%
said that they were considering reexamining them.
As for the seniority wage system, 42.2% of the companies surveyed
had introduced a wage system linked with work performance by work
classification, or had introduced the replacement of the system of
transferring employees with a system of suppressing wages by region,
and 25.3% of the companies responded that they were studying the two
systems.
The former was adopted by a wide range of business categories,
including steel, electric machinery, trade, food, and retailing.
A corporate survey which the Sanro Research Institute Inc. had
announced in February showed that about 60% of the respondents were
planning to reexamine the regular wage hike system.
Some say that the lifetime employment system has essentially collapsed.
Although the number of companies that will abolish regular wage hikes
is still very small, the trend to reexamine the lifetime employment
and seniority systems, established in Japan by the labor-management
after World War II and said to have underpinned the country's economic
growth, is gradually gaining momentum.
-Japanese men and women having the longest average life span in
the world-
According to the findings compiled and announced in 2000 by the
Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, the average life span for the
Japanese people grew further from the previous survey conducted in
1995: 77.72 years for men and 84.60 years for women.
Men's average life span surpassed that of Iceland (77.5 years),
while women's average life span surpassed that of Switzerland
(82.5 years). As of 2000, therefore, Japanese men and women had the
longest average life spans in the world.
The survival rate of women grew especially markedly, with one in
every twenty females expected to live until the age of 100.
For ordinary Japanese citizens, Japan is by no means an easy or
pleasant country to live in. Therefore, the announcement that the
Japanese people have the longest average life span in the world comes
as a surprise to many of us. Coping with a fully-fledged aging society
has therefore become an even more serious and urgent task for all Japanese.
Public Policies
-Draft of the Laws Related to Reform of the Medical System-
The Japanese Government submitted a Draft of Laws Related to Reform
of the Medical System which included a Draft to Revise the Health
Insurance System. These laws aim at reforming the medical system which
was what the Koizumi Administration had publicly pledged to implement.
The laws were to include the following changes.
Continued on;ontinued on;
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/archives/emm/2001-2003/2002a/vol.15/medicalsystem.html
News Clippings
-Japan IBM's 2,000 employees-slightly under 10% of the total work
force-to work mostly at home-
Japan IBM will increase by the end of 2002 the number of home-based
employees to 2,000, slightly less than 7 times the current number.
At present, 300 employees make use of the home-based work program.
Because the program helps raise the work rate, the company decided to
offer the program to up to 9% of all employees.
The program targets about 10,000 employees engaged in indirect
departments such as personnel and accounting, as well as the marketing
department. If realized, the company will have one in every five
employees working at home in front of their PCs for more than one
day per week, communicating with the company via email and telephone.
The average commuting time for IBM Japan employees, round trip,
is about two and a half hours. The Personnel Group expects that, by
switching to home-based work, employees will have more time to spare,
increasing their work efficiency and facilitating their health management
efforts.
IBM Japan is the first company in Japan to implement a home-based
work program on a massive scale, targeting several thousand employees.
The program incorporating home-based work on a large scale will most
likely draw keen attention as a new work system geared to the high-speed
Internet era.
(Nikkei Shimbun, Februaly)
-Matsuda Motor to open a child care facility in Head Office-
Matsuda will open a child care facility at its Head Office in
Hiroshima at the end of March. This setup is the first attempt by an
automobile maker in Japan.
The company has been actively hiring and promoting female employees,
and the opening of the child care facility aims at allowing women
employees with small children demonstrate their abilities to their
fullest. The company began studying setting up a childcare facility
upon request by female employees. However, a survey conducted prior
to the opening showed that male employees saw a greater need for such
a facility more than their female counterparts.
The facility will be run by Pigeon a major childcare-related company.
Those eligible to use the facility are children age 1 to 6, and up to
30 children will be accommodated. The facility will open from 7:30 a.m.
to 9 p.m. on workdays, to enable mothers to leave their children even
if they had to work overtime. The facility will have three childcare
providers, one cook, and a nurse stationed at all times.
(Asahi Shimbun, Februaly)
-Unemployment rate expected to reach 6.4% within two years-
In January, Keidanren conducted a managers' survey targeting 207
of its members comprising President, Vice Presidents, and Permanent
Directors, and obtained 131 effective responses.
The survey found that corporate managers expected a further drop
in total unemployment to 6.4% within the next two years.
They predicted that the average total unemployment anticipated for
this March would be 5.7%, exceeding the all-time high of 5.6% posted
last December. The respondents also expected that unemployment for
March 2003 to be 6.0% on average.
Amid the spread of pessimistic views on economic outlook, a growing
number of managers expect that the employment situation would worsen
in the months to come. These views will most likely affect the spring
labor offensive as well.
(Nikkei Shimbun, Februaly)
Special Issue
-Japan no longer a major exporter-
Japan saw its international balance of payments reverse in 2001
between its trade balance and income balance.
This seems to prove that Japan has transformed itself from being an
export giant to a "matured industrialized nation" that relies on overseas
assets for its wealth.
Increase in the income balance is thought to be attributed to returns
of securities investments, increased local production by Japanese
companies in North America (a major consumption nation), and increased
production in Asia (Japan's manufacturing and export base). This trend
is expected to continue for some time. This means that, even if trade
balance may continue to decrease, the balance of current accounts would
not deteriorate right away.
Unlike trade balance, however, the surplus of income balance does
not accompany increased employment. In the case of Japan, moreover,
there is concern that the manufacturing sector would continue to
hollow out rapidly. If the amount of surplus decreases, there is a
danger that the overall economy would shrink also.
Here again, reform of the industrial structure would play a key role.
Of utmost importance is the development of new industries centering
on the service sector.
