The Japan Labor Flash No.86
Email Journal June 15, 2007
Statistical Reports
Statistical Survey Reports
Current Topics
At 3.8%, Unemployment Rate is below 4.0% for the First Time in
9 Years and 1 Month
Complaints Concerning Individual Labor Disputes Totaled 187,000 in
Fiscal Year 2006
Public Policies
Enactment of A Revised Part-Time Work Law, A Revised Employment
Measure Law, and A Law Concerning the Promotion of Local Employment
Development
Complaints Brought in to Labor Tribunal System in Initial Year
Total 1,163
News Clippings
Rush of Job-Seeking Female Students for Posts on "General Track"
Everyone Goes to Large Firms? 40% of Firms in Saitama Pref. Unable
to Hire New Recruits as Planned
Special Issue
Over-Busy Schoolteachers
Statistical Reports
-Statistical Survey Reports-
Features
Status on Industrial accidents of death cases and significant
accidents in 2006
Survey on Situation of Official Job Offer for New Graduate in
Mar.2007 (Senior and Junior High School) (End of March)
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/estatis/esaikin/2007/e2007-05.htm
Current Topics
-At 3.8%, Unemployment Rate is below 4.0% for the First Time in
9 Years and 1 Month-
On May 29, the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal
Affairs and Communications published the results (preliminary report)
of its Labour Force Survey. According to the findings, the (seasonally
adjusted) unemployment rate for April was 3.8 percent, down by 0.2
percentage points from the previous month, falling below 4.0 percent
for the first time in nine years and one month since March 1998.
The unemployment rate for males was 4.0 percent (a drop of 0.1
percentage points from the previous month), and that for females
3.6 percent (a drop of 0.3 percentage points). The number of jobless
persons declined by 160,000 from the previous year to 2.68 million.
The number of those who are job-hunting - unemployed persons who
lost their jobs due to bankruptcies of or restructuring measures by
their previous companies, or other reasons on the part of their
previous employers - fell by 110,000 from the previous year to 580,000,
and those who quit their jobs due to job-switching or personal reasons
fell by 60,000 over the same period to 970,000.
Despite all this, the proportion of non-regular employees has
increased by more than 33 percent over the last five years, and the
annual incomes of part-time and various other non-regular employees
are undoubtedly fairly low. At the same time, regional gaps in incomes
have been widening, hence amplifying the problems related to unemployment.
One cannot feel unreservedly relieved at the current downward trend in
unemployment.
-Complaints Concerning Individual Labor Disputes Totaled 187,000 in
Fiscal Year 2006-
At the end of May, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
compiled and published the practical achievement of the individual
labor dispute settlement system in fiscal year 2006. The number of
cases handled by some 300 comprehensive labor counseling desks across
the country regarding civil, individual labor disputes increased by
6.2 percent from the previous fiscal year to a total of 187,387. Since
fiscal year 2001, when the system was launched, the number has steadily
increased, matching an increase in the number of part-time, dispatched
and other non-regular employees. The highest proportion of these, which
comprised 23.8 percent of the aggregate number, concerned dismissals,
followed by "lowering of labor conditions" (12.8 %), and "bullying and
harassment" (10.3 %).
Public Policies
-Enactment of A Revised Part-Time Work Law, A Revised Employment
Measure Law, and A Law Concerning the Promotion of Local Employment
Development-
At an Upper House plenary session held on May 25, the revised Law
Concerning the Improvement of Employment Management etc. of Part-Time
Workers (Part-Time Work Law) was passed with a majority approval by
the ruling parties. The Japan Labor Flash has been following the
process of the legislation submitted on February 13 to the Diet in
the light of the nature of the law and reports of the relevant council.
(See "Public Policies" in issues Nos. 78 and 79 of the Japan Labor
Flash.) The enactment of the revised Part-Time Law will help balance
the treatment of part-time workers with that of ordinary workers with
measures such as ensuring appropriate working conditions; improvement
of employment management; encouraging part-timers to shift their
status to ordinary workers; and promoting the development and
improvement of their vocational abilities. These measures will be
applicable to part-time workers whose jobs and responsibilities
involved in their assignments, as well as working hours, are more
or less identical to those of regular employees: the Ministry of
Health, Labour and Welfare estimates that those satisfying these
conditions are represent 4 - 5 percent of the approximately 12 million
part-time workers as a whole. The revised law (with the exception of
some parts of it) will come into effect on April 1, 2008.
On June 1, the revised Employment Measure Law and the revised Law
Concerning the Promotion of Local Employment Development were also
passed. The former will secure employment opportunities for young
workers by, for example, banning firms from placing age limits when
recruiting and hiring employees; conducting practical vocational
training programs; and making it obligatory for firms to report the
situation concerning employment of foreign workers. The latter will
stipulate measures to promote employment in regions where the
unemployment situation is particularly severe.
*The JLF No.78
*The JLF No.79
-Complaints Brought in to Labor Tribunal System in Initial Year Total
1,163-
The Supreme Court has compiled complaints (as of the end of March
2007) brought in to the Labor Tribunal System launched on April 1,
2006. The number of complaints brought to various district courts
across the country totaled 1,163, of which 919 cases were completed:
644 cases were settled via conciliation, and 162 via labor tribunals.
In terms of the nature of complaints, 454 cases were related to the
confirmation of status (dismissals, etc.), and 318 complaints pertained
to wages and retirement allowances. The average number of days between
the lodging of a complaint and completion of trial was 74.2 days.
News Clippings
-Rush of Job-Seeking Female Students for Posts on "General Track"-
An increasing number of firms, in their recruitment activities for
new female graduates next spring, seemed to have resumed the recruitment
of so-called employees on the general track to engage primarily in
supplementary assignments within the firms. "Stable posts" appear
to attract female job-searching students who wish to work for one
company over a longer period of time.
Itochu Corp. and Marubeni Corp., two of the leading all round trade
houses, have for the first time in nine years resumed the hiring of
female workers for the general track to commence employment next
spring. Marubeni Corp.'s on-line recruitment alone received some 5,000
applications from students who applied for 30 posts, making the success
rate of only one out of 170 applications. In addition, Marubeni also
has a system whereby new recruits hired on the general track are allowed
to switch their positions to the career track, or to be in charge of
planning, etc., if they so wish and are qualified to do so. "We assume
that our system is popular because it is satisfactory and allows
various working styles," says a Marubeni personnel staff.
Although Itochu Corp. hired more than 100 employees on the general
track each year in the 1980s, the company has terminated this method
of hiring due to a reduction in workload, thanks to the introduction
of information technology. "Dispatched workers are replaced by new
ones more or less completely within three years, so that it is difficult
to require them to engage in the same jobs as those assigned to regular
employees. As an increasing number of female workers now wish to work
longer years, we have expanded the alternatives in order to satisfy
the changing needs", says a member of the company's personnel staff.
(Yomiuri Shimbun, May)
-Everyone Goes to Large Firms? 40% of Firms in Saitama Pref. Unable
to Hire New Recruits as Planned-
Some 40 percent of firms in Saitama Prefecture, adjacent to Tokyo,
were unable to hire as many new graduates as they had planned this April,
according to a survey carried out by the Saitama Resona Foundation for
Industrial Cooperation.
The shortage of new recruits is particularly serious among small
and medium-sized enterprises, the reason being, perhaps, that larger
firms that expanded their new recruitment due to the gradual economic
recovery had successfully taken a greater proportion of the new workers.
The survey, conducted in mid-April, was aimed at 982 firms with 10
or more regular employees in the prefecture: effective returns totaled
238 (valid rate: 24.2%, of which SMEs accounted for 89.1%).
As for recruitment of students graduating this spring, the proportion
of firms, which replied that they had hired the planned number of new
recruits, declined 8.4 percentage points from the previous fiscal year
to 60.2 percent. The proportion of those that replied "slightly fewer"
was 32.9 percent (an increase of 7.0 percentage points from the previous
fiscal year), and "substantially fewer" 6.8 percent (an increase of
1.3 percentage points), suggesting an intensified sense of shortage of
new recruits compared to the previous fiscal year.
In terms of company size, though 70 percent of large firms responded
and stated that they had hired the planned number of new recruits,
only 58.9 percent of SMEs replied. The survey has indicated the
difficulties faced by the latter in hiring new graduates.
Judging from the survey's results, the Foundation concludes that
"able new graduates are drained off to large firms; SMEs seem to be
shifting their focus, as sources of their labor force, to mid-career
recruitment and dispatched workers."
(Yomiuri Shimbun, May)
Special Issue
-Over-Busy Schoolteachers-
On May 23, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology published the results of a survey of the working conditions
of schoolteachers at public elementary, lower secondary, and upper
secondary schools. The survey, conducted between July and December
2006, was the first in 40 years, and was aimed at 46,045 schoolteachers
at 2,160 randomly extracted elementary and lower secondary schools.
Effective answers were returned by 36,300 schoolteachers from 1,973
schools. The high-school survey was carried out between October and
December, and was aimed at 19,584 schoolteachers at 360 high schools,
from which effective replies were received from 15,305 schoolteachers
from 300 schools. (The valid rates were above 80 percent in both cases.)
Continued on;
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/archives/emm/2003/no.86/86_si.html
