Japan Press Weekly

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2013 September 11 - 17 [POLITICS]

Human resources business expects golden opportunity under Abe’s labor policy

Under the banner of greater labor mobility “without unemployment”, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is moving to increase more unstable and low-paying jobs by utilizing human resource service businesses.

In its budget request for the next fiscal year, the Abe Cabinet has included measures to give the private business sector more opportunities to engage in job replacement and training services.

It proposes that the national budget for a subsidy to “support labor mobility” be increased from 200 million yen to 31 billion yen so that not only small- and medium-sized enterprises but also large corporations will be subject to the subsidy program. Under the program, the government currently subsidizes half of costs SMEs pay to human resource service firms which successfully helped their employees find new jobs.

Another subsidy program Prime Minister Abe is attempting to include the private sector is for promotion of “trial employment,” which is currently given to employers who hired a job seeker for a certain period of time through the assistance of a public “Hello Work” office (public employment security office). The government proposes that the subsidy be increased from 7.1 to 12.1 billion yen.

Prior to these moves, four groups in private human resource businesses (temporary labor, manufacturing contractors, job advertisements, and job placement assistance) jointly established an organization last year, called the Japan Association of Human Resource Service Industry.

The association has called for public jobs given to “Hello Work” offices to be outsourced to the private sector, arguing that the human resource service market can make nine trillion yen, much more potential income than in nursing care or electronic device industries.

The Abe Cabinet is also seeking to lower the legal requirements for corporate dismissals of employees and to deregulate the Worker Dispatch Law.

“If the Worker Dispatch Law is relaxed, we will have even more clients,” said an executive of a temp agency, who believes that Abe’s labor policy will bring more job opportunities to the human resource service sector.