Japan approves controversial temp staffing bill

Japan’s parliament has approved a controversial bill that will allow companies to use temporary staff indefinitely, provided they change staff every three years, Japan Times reports.
Mon, 14 Sep 2015

Japan’s parliament has approved a controversial bill that will allow companies to use temporary staff indefinitely, provided they change staff every three years, Japan Times reports.

Recruiters in the region tell Recruiter it is too early to determine what, if any, impact it will have either on the industry or on temporary workers.

The amendment to the Worker Dispatch Law, effective 30 September, is seen as the first key step in labour market deregulation under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s growth strategy. It comes despite criticism it could confine workers to unstable jobs for the length of their working lives.

It also introduces greater regulation for staffing firms, by requiring them to have government permission to operate.

Michael Page Tokyo managing director Basil Le Roux told Recruiter: “In all honesty, I wonder if there will be any significant impact from this new law change.”

But, he said, it raises the question of whether the government had considered the impact on temp workers who had already been employed by one company for more than three years. 

“Do companies need to suddenly make these temps redundant due to this new law change?”

Robert Walters Japan and Korea managing director David Swan told Recruiter very few details as to how the new rules should be implemented had been released.

“Instructions will be released on 28 September,” Swan said. “Given the very tight timeframe for implementation we expect there to be a significant grace period and flexibility applied to recruitment firms in implementing the new rules.”

He also said the new law would provide clarity, give employers the benefit of increased flexibility, and provide contractors with more training and support from staffing agencies. 

The new law requires staffing agencies to ask companies accepting temporary workers to hire them directly after three years employment.

If the companies do not, then the agency must hire those workers or find them employment elsewhere.

Before the amendment, companies could only use temporary labour for more than three years if those workers held certain expertise – interpreters or secretaries, for example.

Japan Times reports the country had 1.2m temp workers as of June last year. 

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