On December 4, DPJ Non-Regular Employment Measures Project Team Leader Ritsuo Hosokawa , made the following comment:

Regarding the employment of workers on fixed-term contracts (contract workers), Labor Contract Law Article 17 Clause 1 states that employers may not terminate their employment until their contract period has expired except where there is an "unavoidable reason". The employer who is canceling the contract bears responsibility for proving that such an "unavoidable reason" exists. The DPJ's amendment to the Labor Contract Law now makes it clearer that employers prematurely terminating the contracts of contract employees must prove that they have an unavoidable reason for doing so.

However, we are concerned to see news reports of employees who were told in the middle of November that they would be laid off at the end of December despite extending their contracts in October until April 2009. On November 28, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare published a report on the employment of non-regular employees which concluded that 30,067 contract employees in Japan's 47 prefectures had lost their jobs in 477 premature contract termination incidents. This report is based on face-to face interviews with corporations, and it would appear that many contract employees are having their contracts terminated prematurely. If these employees are not receiving the wages they are due for the remainder of their contracts, then we condemn such action as going against the spirit of Article 17 of the Labor Contract Law.

Unlimited contracts and limited-term contracts differ in their nature. The length of a limited term contract is determined through agreement between the employer and the employee. Both parties are bound by the contract and are strongly required to adhere to it. Naturally, employees expect that their employment will be guaranteed for the length of the contract. The terms of the Labor Contract Law, which limits the premature cancellation of limited term contract to cases in which there is an "unavoidable reason", are understood to be narrower in scope than the legal concept of "the abuse of the right to terminate employment" which only forbids termination in cases where there is "objectively speaking, no rational reason for the termination, and as such the termination is not acceptable under socially accepted norms". Although each case must be examined individually, we should not automatically assume that a company dispatching personnel or company employing dispatch personnel has an "unavoidable reason" simply because they have decided to terminate an employee's contract.

Both employers and employees must thoroughly understand the terms of the Labor Contract Law. Workers who have seen their contracts terminated prematurely should not simply accept what has happened to them. They should ask their employers to provide evidence of an "unavoidable reason". If they do not receive a satisfactory explanation, they should act determinedly to ensure payment of their wages for the remainder of their contract period and should not hesitate to take legal action if necessary. This winter, we expect employment conditions to be extremely harsh. We urge the government to make serious efforts to address the current situation through measures such as bolstering the consultative and information-providing functions of labor authorities and unemployment offices i.e. local Labor Bureaus and Hello Work offices.