Japan Press Weekly

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2017 February 1 - 7 [LABOR]

Proportion of non-regular workers hits all-time high

The percentage of non-regular workers out of the total workforce reached an all-time high of 37.5% in 2016. This was shown in a government survey.

The results of the Labor Force Survey, which was released by the Internal Affairs Ministry on January 31, indicated that more and more full-time jobs have been replaced with temporary jobs and that this trend is more noticeable among workers in the age groups of 35-44 and 55-64.

According to the survey, the number of workers increased by 1.96 million from 51.85 million in 2007 to 53.81 million in 2016. During the same period of time, the number of regular workers went down by 850,000 to 33.64 million and that of non-regular workers went up by 2.81 million to 20.16 million.

In the past four years under the Abe government, among employees aged 35-44, the number of regular employees decreased by 410,000 while the number of non-regular employees increased by 150,000. In the 55-64 age bracket, the number of workers working as full-time workers fell by 130,000 and the number of those working as temporary workers rose by 70,000 compared to 2012.

The Abe government has been making pro-business revisions to labor laws, which caused a surge in non-regular employment. Low-paid unstable jobs expanded among workers, especially among those around 40 years of age, leading to the impoverishment of the middle class.