Japan Press Weekly

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2012 January 18 - 24 [LABOR]

Receiving gov’t grants, large firms hire temps on fixed terms

While using the government’s grant program to promote direct employment of temporary workers, many employers have given such workers only fixed-term employment status.

The Labor Ministry in February 2009 launched an employment stabilization program to give grants to companies that directly hired the temps they were using. The amount of the grants will differ in accordance with the length of the employment period.

According to the ministry, 81% of former temporary workers who received direct employment status due to this program have worked on fixed-term contracts as short as 6 months.

During the period between the introduction of the program in February 2009 and November 2011, 63,763 former temporary workers were directly hired by companies where they had been dispatched to by staffing agencies.

Small- and medium-sized companies gave regular employment status to 43% of former temps they hired based on this program while only 19% at large companies obtained regular employment status.