The ruling Democratic Party of Japan has realized legislation for the improvement of the employment situation by listening to the voices of people in the workplace. Here, we will explain about three measures and policies which were described in the Manifestos or the “New Growth Strategy” by the DPJ cabinets after the change in government.

[Expansion of the coverage of employment insurance]
Previously, employment insurance was provided only for those “who are projected to work for more than 6 months with over 20 hours of weekly working hours”. This condition on employment period prevented many part-time workers from joining the employment insurance.
Therefore, we amended the Employment Insurance Act to enlarge the coverage by relaxing the requirements. From 2010, it allows workers “who work for more than 30 days with over 20 hours of weekly working hours” to join the employment insurance. As a result, 2.21 million workers were able to newly join the insurance within the following year.

[Implementation of “job seekers support system”]
We implemented the “job seekers support system” in order to give opportunities to engage in job skill training for people who are not eligible to receive unemployment benefits. Public job consulting offices (or Hello Work offices) consistently support the whole job-searching process all the way from before training through to completion of training, in order to encourage job seekers to find a suitable job promptly. If the circumstances so require, trainees can receive benefit to support their living costs during the training.

Recently in Japan, non-regular workers account for over 30 percent of the total employed workforce, and there is also an increase in the number of long-term unemployed. Given the transforming Japanese labor market, we have taken a lead in enacting the abovementioned legislation to establish a new safety net as the “second safety net”. The legislation was enacted in May 2011, and the system was started in October of the same year.
By April 2012, about 60,000 people had started job skills training in the framework of this “job seekers support system”, and some have already completed their training.

[Amendment of the Worker Dispatch Law]
A quarter of a century has passed since the establishment of the Worker Dispatch Law in 1985. Meanwhile, major amendments took place three times towards deregulation, and issues such as illegal contracts and an increase in dispatched workers hired by the day were pointed out. Also after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the autumn of 2008, “haken-giri” (layoffs of temporary employees) occurred frequently and it became a problem in society.

After the change in government, in order to improve such situations related to workers, the bill was submitted to the Diet in April 2010. However, due to the Great East Japan Earthquake, a sudden high Yen, and European debt crisis, the amended law was passed at the Diet and enacted finally in March this year.
Although some of the provisions from the government’s plan were deleted or taken as items for consideration, the Amended Worker Dispatch Law includes provisions relating to the workers protection such as “prohibition of dispatched workers hired by the day”, “disclosure of information including margin of profit”, and “establishment of the deemed employment contract application system”. This amendment marked the first step in pushing forward reforms to protect temporary employees and to stabilize employment.

[Strategy for Working "Nadeshiko" (Nadeshiko is a woman who displays the feminine virtues of old Japan)]
We would like to introduce one more policy relating to employment that we are engaged in. The main pillar of Noda administration’s Japan Revitalization Strategy is revitalizing the economy through the promotion of women’s initiatives. This implies the inclusion of female workers who desire to work by displaying their competence and capability as a strategy that is indispensable for future economic growth while the aging society with fewer children accelerates. Although reports for the promotion of employment of women have piled up, the truth is that there have been few visible accomplishments so far.

As a “Strategy for promotion of women’s initiatives and corporate enterprise revitalization promotion operations” through which the government directly encourages corporate enterprises and associations, we will take positive actions such as visiting 20,000 companies within 3 years from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and its equal employment offices of local prefectural governments, with cooperation from related Ministries. Also, we would like to take measures such as disclosing information by corporate enterprises and quantifying merit as a “Strategy for Working ‘Nadeshiko’.” Although employment conditions are still severe, we will continue to do our best in order to improve employment measures through pushing forward women’s initiatives.