Japan Press Weekly

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2021 June 30 - July 6 [LABOR]

65% of home helpers are not paid for waiting time between appointments

In a survey regarding working conditions of home-visit care workers known as home helpers, which was published on July 1, 65% are not paid for hours on standby between one home visit to another.

The survey was conducted between July 2020 and September 2020 by a group of home helpers who are fighting a damage suit claiming that government negligence in dealing with labor law violations has brought about various disadvantages, such as non-payment of wages for time spent traveling between visits.

According to the survey, 78% of respondents said that their annual income is less than 2.1 million yen and 65% said that they are not paid for waiting time between visits. In addition, 51% said that when users cancel their appointments, cancelled appointments are counted as a white space in the schedule or on-call time without pay.

In the survey, the percentage of those who answered that they have thought about quitting their jobs reached 58%. On the other hand, asked what deterred them from leaving jobs, 36% citied economic necessity.

Past related article:
> Low pay and aging of workers create critical crisis in nursing-care industry [April 23, 2019]