Japan Press Weekly

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2007 April 11 - 17 [LABOR]

Labor Ministry uses staffing agency while instructing it to end illegal practices

The Labor Ministry has awarded contracts to a major staffing agency while instructing the company to put an end to its business practices in violation of the Worker Dispatch Law. At the April 10 House of Councilors Labor Committee meeting, Japanese Communist Party representative Koike Akira revealed this practice.

Ignoring an instruction issued by the Kanagawa Labor Bureau last August, the staffing agency, Fullcast, continued to dispatch temporary workers to fill security service and construction work jobs in violation of the law from its 53 branches throughout the country. In March, the Tokyo Labor Bureau issued to the company an administrative order to improve its business operations.

The Tokyo Labor Bureau, however, on January 5 gave Fullcast HR Institute, a Fullcast-affiliated firm, a contract to provide seminars on job hunting. Last October, it chose an assessment test offered by the Fullcast HR Institute as one of the government-designated tests to evaluate the ability of career consultants.

Koike urged the Labor Ministry to stop awarding contracts to companies that have violated laws, stating, “By outsourcing its business, the ministry is in effect giving subsidies to them.”

Labor Minister Yanagisawa Hakuo answered, “We must review those contracts.” - Akahata, April 11, 2007