Human Resources

January 2003

The labor ministry will try to raise to 30% the ratio of job offers available to all ages to all job offers receives by the end of fiscal 2005. As of last November, only 12.8% of job offers accepted by public employment offices across the nation were without age limits for applicants. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has decided to try to more than double the figure to 30%, setting the first numerical target of its kind, in a bid to help jobless middle-aged and elderly people find new jobs. In October 2001, a revised Employment Measures Law took effect, under which companies are banned from specifying age in recruiting activities, although there are no legal penalties. However, there are 10 reasons for which companies may set age limits, including one for jobs that require workers to 'sustain certain levels of bodily and visual powers. In a ministry survey conducted in September 2001 prior to the legal revision, only 1.6% of job offers were available to all ages. Last November, the ministry surveyed new job offers at some 600 public job centers to see how much progress was made in job availability in terms of age in the first year of the legislation. It asked companies that set age restrictions to explain the necessity, and found 53.0% of them did so because of the physical and eyesight requirement. The ministry suspects some the companies might have used the requirement as an excuse not to hire middle-aged and elderly people, and will investigate if there are any firms abusing the legal clause. The ministry will also instruct companies to do their best to raise the upper ceiling of age limits in recruiting. （January 22, Kyodo News）

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will ease regulations on personnel placement agencies by allowing setting up branches without requiring prior approval from the government, by the end of fiscal 2003. The step is meant to help such companies belonging to one of the nation's growth industries expand quickly and flexibly. The ministry will submit bills to amend the related laws to the regular Diet session in March for enforcement of the new rules in fiscal 2003. Personnel placement agencies are divided into job referral companies, which mediate between job seekers and advertisers, and temporary placement agencies. These companies are currently required to obtain prior approval from the labor ministry whenever they set up a branch, a process that takes about two months. The new rules would allow them to quickly establish branch offices in an area where a large number of people are to be thrown out of jobs, due to a factory closure, and help them find new jobs. The ministry will also ease personnel-related regulations for those firms. Currently, job referral companies are required to have one staff member responsible for each 500 registered job seekers, although the new regulations will permit them to have fewer employees. Also, under the new rules, personnel overseeing temporary workers dispatched to companies will be required to receive industry-wide training sessions less frequently than at present. In fiscal 2001, the number of job referral operations stood at about 5,500, while that of temporary placement agency units was 11,500 in Japan, both up more than 10% from the previous year, according to the ministry's data. (January 19, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun)

The Ministry of Labor has decided to launch a job creation program worth over 80 billion yen, to boost employment of safety net. The program will target more than 100,000 workers, whose employers have had bank loans sold to the Resolution and Collection Corp. (RCC), forcing for lay off. The program will give such workers better access to assistance by private job placement agencies, and companies that hire such redundant workers will be granted a subsidy of 600,000 yen per person, double the sum given under the government's current program. As banks step up their bad loan disposals, the construction and retail sectors will be compelled to scale down their operations as they will be cut off from bank lending. Also to be covered by the program are workers whose companies have had their debts forgiven by main lenders, been slapped with tougher loan terms or had their mortgages foreclosed by main lenders. The ministry intends to later include companies whose loans have been sold to the Industrial Rehabilitation Corp. Affiliated organizations of the ministry are scheduled to begin accepting applications for the program soon. The new program will fund up to 300,000 yen of the costs in hiring a private job placement company to help laid-off employees find new jobs. A company that refrains from firing workers and transfers them to an affiliated firm instead, will also receive a subsidy to partially compensate for the resulting decline in productivity. The necessary funding for the program already has been obtained thanks to a supplementary budget for the current fiscal year. If major banks dispose of problem loans extended to companies on the brink of bankruptcy and loans of even poorer quality, about 140,000 workers are predicted to lose their jobs. (January 3, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun)