Category: Dispatch

The period between October 2008 and this June will see 4,955 employers shed 269,790 nonregular jobs, a March labor ministry survey showed Tuesday. The figure, including workers whose labor contracts with manpower agencies were not renewed after expiration, increased by 7,192 from the previous survey in February, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said. A…

Being a temp comes with a number of drawbacks: a lack of job security, often low pay — and if you’re a man, anyway, little chance of tying the knot. So says the latest labor ministry survey, released Wednesday, which found that out of some 700 single, male temporary workers aged 20 to 34 who…

The labor ministry last month asked an advisory body to discuss possible revisions to the law governing the dispatch of temporary contract workers. The Hatoyama administration hopes to improve the stability of dispatch workers’ employment situation, and plans to send a bill containing revisions to the Diet in March. According to a ministry draft of…

Labor bill loopholes may let manufacturers still have ‘disposable’ ranks The Hatoyama administration is working on an amendment to the job dispatch law in an effort to provide greater security to temporary workers hit by the economic slump. But observers worry that the Democratic Party of Japan-led ruling coalition is backing away from a campaign…

The second coming of Haken Mura (dispatched workers’ village), temporary holiday accommodation for Japan’s growing number of laid-off haken (dispatched) workers, attracted less public attention than its 2009 incarnation. “Big” stories, such as the alleged corruption involving ruling party leader Ozawa Ichiro, or the US-Japan spat over where to put American Marine helicopters in Okinawa,…

An advisory panel to the labor minister issued a report Monday recommending that staffing agencies be prohibited from registering workers on individual contracts for specific jobs that pay only when work is available. The report, which also proposes banning the practice of sending workers for short-term manufacturing jobs, comes in line with a government plan…

The global recession that started in autumn last year has dramatically highlighted the vulnerability of temporary and other nonregular workers at this time of economic contraction. In response, the government started reviewing the worker dispatch law at the Labor Policy Council, which advises Akira Nagatsuma, the minister of health, labor and welfare. The council has…

To help those most vulnerable in economic downturns, the labor ministry decided to ban, in principle, “registration-type” dispatches, in which staffing agencies conclude contracts with workers only for their dispatch periods, sources said. The ministry also decided Tuesday to prohibit the staffing agencies from sending blue-collar workers to manufacturing industries for short-term work, they said.…

Japan saw the number of temporary workers rise by 4.6 percent in fiscal 2008, a survey released by the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare showed on Thursday. The number of workers now on temporary contracts stood at 3.99 million for fiscal 2008, in a country that was once known for companies that gave their…