Showing papers in "Japan labor review in 2014"

Japan's challenge of fostering "global human resources": policy debates and practices

Abstract: In recent years in Japan, ‘global jinzai (global human resources)’ is a term appearing most frequently in the discourse of human resource development through tertiary education. This article aims to analyze the poliy debates and actual challenges of Japan’s challenges in fostering ‘global human resources’. Firstly, the author explains the background on why the Japanese government and society find it important to stress the necessity of ‘global human resources’, focusing on the lack of policy level initiatives and individual level incentives for study and working outside of Japan. Secondly, the article examines how policy debate on ‘global human resources’ has started as an initiative to encourage Japanese youth to study and work abroad. Thirdly, the actual practices for fostering ‘global human resources, through various initiatives by education institutions and industries are examined. Finally, the author concludes with the achievement and remaining challenges of this national level movement of fostering ‘global human resources’.

Japanese-style human resource management and its historical origins

Abstract: This paper examines the economic rationality of Japanese-style human resource management (HRM) and provides an overview of how and in what historical context Japanese firms formed such a model, which had no precedent in the Western world. The core of the Japanese model is an employer's promise to provide human capital investment and employment security to regular employees in exchange for their dedication and skill formation so as to achieve high productivity. However, this 'exchange' is not a legally binding contract but merely an implicit one, and for it to constitute a 'self-enforcing' equilibrium, complementary HRM policies, such as internal promotion and joint labor-management consultations, must also be instituted. With this in mind, this paper defines the Japanese-style HRM model consisting of seven key policies that complement one another and traces their historical origins by making use of a wealth of preceding research.

Work-life balance in Japan: outline of policies, legal system and actual situations

Abstract: This paper presents the background, course and content of Japan's work-life balance policies as a whole, as well as future challenges in the main individual policy areas of childcare leave, working hours, part-time labor and nursery care. The latter analysis includes brief comparisons with four other countries (UK, USA, Germany and France).

Trends in corporate hiring of recent graduates: focus on developments since the global financial crisis

Abstract: What sort of trends can be seen in Japanese companies’ hiring practices since the global financial crisis of 2008? The author sought to clarify this issue through quantitative analysis, employing a questionnaire survey, and qualitative analysis based on interviews conducted at 17 companies The findings clearly showed stagnation in hiring of mid-career human resources and increased preference for hiring of new graduates As the globalization of business progresses, Japanese companies are hiring a growing number of international students and personnel with high levels of language proficiency, but they still make recruitment of new graduates the mainstay of their hiring practices As to why companies gravitate toward hiring young people fresh out of school, the so-called “white cloth” analogy holds that these new graduates are the equivalent of white cloth that can be dyed any color, and are thus preferred by companies seeking to imprint their in-house standards and corporate culture The results of the author’s analysis point to the validity of the “white cloth” analogy While corporations are likely to hire more mid-career human resources as the economy improves, it appears that they will continue to rely primarily on hiring of new graduates to meet their human resource needs

High economic growth and human capital : conditions for sustained growth

Abstract: This paper explains changes in wage structure during and following the era of high economic growth from the perspectives of both supply and demand, and evaluates the impact of human capital formation on the Japanese economy. An attempt is also made to clarify to what extent and in what form various channels of human capital formation contributed to economic growth. First, school education continued to be an effective investment despite the spread of higher education, and gradually grew in importance as a channel that raised the quality of the labor force. The reason for this is that changes in technology were biased toward certain academic backgrounds. Academic skills raised productivity in tandem with new technologies and thereby contributed to economic growth. Next, in-house training maintained its usefulness amongst male workers despite the aging of the labor force, and accounted for about half of all the accumulation of skills. On the other hand, female workers were excluded from the general training that aimed to foster work skills with wide applicability. Finally, faced with today’s trends toward “non-regular” work and “impoverishment,” ideas on how to maintain mechanisms for broad human capital formation will be discussed.

Dismissals in Japan. Part one: how strict is japanese law on employers?

Abstract: In its 2004 Employment Outlook, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated that the legal protection of permanent workers against individual dismissal in Japan is one of the most strictly regulated among nations. However, in its 2013 Employment Outlook, the OECD reassessed the laws regarding dismissals among its member nations and reclassified Japan in the top third of OECD countries in which regulation is less stringent. On the other hand, a prestigious newspaper commented recently that “in Japan, employment laws make it almost impossible to fire regular workers.” This stereotypical view still exists among international observers. In this paper, the authors provide more precise information on the law and practice of dismissals in Japan. This Part One gives an overview of the law regulating dismissals. In Part Two to follow later, the authors will outline the practice of dismissals in Japan.

Historical origins of the male breadwinner household model : Britain, Sweden and Japan

Abstract: Studies of historical origins of the male breadwinner household model cut across the boundaries of economic history, labour history, women’s history, and welfare state studies. The model is said to have been established between the mid-19th and the mid-20th century in many countries. This essay begins with a brief survey of literature on the historical path to breadwinning, with special reference to Britain, Sweden and Japan. The literature survey is followed by the examination of a hypothesis put forward by the economic historian Jan de Vries, which focuses on household production by married women, first in west European historical contexts, and then with Japanese pre-war data. It is argued that one of the factors accounting for the rise of the breadwinner regime was an increase in the demand for home-produced goods and services, a factor specific to a particular phase of development where the market supplied no acceptable substitutes for most of these. At the same time, it is emphasized that culture-specific factors, such as family formation rules, traditional systems of welfare, and the government’s stance and policies, are also important for a better understanding of the rise of breadwinning in each historical case.

Marriage preceded by pregnancy and women's employment

Abstract: When a woman’s pregnancy precedes her marriage, what sort of impact does it have on her future career? In this paper, we examine this issue. Since marriage preceded by pregnancy is concentrated in certain socioeconomic status groups, in addition to ordinary methods of estimation, we also employed models using the propensity score of marriage preceded by pregnancy, in order to balance the structure of covariates. The results show that although those who have experienced marriage preceded by pregnancy are more likely than their counterparts to quit their jobs after marriage, the likelihood of their being full-time (rather than non-regular) employees after childbirth is higher than those in the other group. They are also more likely to be employed full-time when their first child is one year old. However, we found no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of childcare leave utilization, employment status after controlling for age of youngest child, or annual income. While the likelihood of resignation from work is higher among women who have experienced marriage preceded by pregnancy, their status does not appear to place them at an extreme disadvantage in terms of likelihood of employment, or employment status, after childbirth. In a social climate marked by an ongoing weakening of factors other than pregnancy that encourage women to marry, we speculate that marriage precipitated by pregnancy will gain increasing social acceptance as a pattern of family formation.

Higher educacion and work in japan: characteristics and challenges

Abstract: The relationship between higher education and work has always been problematic all over the world and throughout history What constitutes the relationship? What are the issues? This paper tries to shed some light on this issue in Japan, based on a large scale survey on college graduates and other related data As the basis of discussion, I will lay out a simple framework of analysis (Section I), then discuss the unique characteristics of the Japanese case (Section II), and examine the challenges that Japan faces and examine some analytical questions (Section III)

The labor market and marriage decisions in Japan

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of supply-demand balance in the labor market on the recent ongoing trend toward marriage avoidance in Japan, incorporating reviews of previous studies. From a theoretical standpoint, declining income and wages could be seen either as encouraging or as discouraging marriage, but according to empirical analyses in previous studies of Japanese marriage behavior, for men in particular regular employment with high earning potential appears to have the effect of encouraging marriage, and being hired as a regular employee immediately upon graduation appears correlated with younger marriage ages. For women, as well, some previous studies have found a positive correlation between being hired as a regular employee immediately upon graduation and getting married younger. It follows that the decline in hiring of young people as regular employees, as a result of economic stagnation, may be one of the causes of the recent trend toward marriage avoidance.

Workaholism and mental and physical health

Abstract: In this paper, the author addresses the topic of workaholism as it pertains to the characteristics of long-hour workers and conducts an analysis that focuses primarily on workaholism’s relationship with state of health. The analysis was conducted in line with three elements of workaholism that were posited by Spence and Robbins (1992); namely, “work enjoyment,” “driven,” and “work involvement.” In looking at the relationship between these three elements of workaholism and working hours, the analysis showed that people who get more enjoyment from their work, feel more inner drive toward their work, or feel a stronger sense of involvement in their work tend to work longer hours. However, the correlation coefficients in this relationship were not very high. In looking at the correlations among the three elements, the analysis found that the relationship between “driven” and “work involvement” was relatively strong and can be viewed as a negative aspect of workaholism, while their relationship with “work enjoyment,” which is a positive aspect, was weak. Furthermore, a multivariate analysis of the impact of the three elements that used state of mental and physical health as an explained variable showed that “driven” has a consistently negative impact on mental and physical health.

Reform of university education for non-elite university students

Abstract: After the shift in higher education policy in the 1990s, higher education underwent a rapid transformation from the previous “mass stage” to a “universal stage.” This stage shift was accompanied by the emergence of problems in university education that would not have been conceivable until then. I see this as a problem of “non-elite university students,” and have raised a number of arguments from the viewpoint that the direction of education reform in the group of universities that are forced to accept such students is an issue for “universal universities” (Igami 2010). Among other points, the basic direction of educational reform should be to have academic ability at primary and secondary levels completely taught in “remedial education,” and to present “career models for non-elite students” in “career education.” In conventional universities, these have been considered outside the scope of university education, but in universal universities, they are seen as extremely essential elements of educational reform.

Mental disorders among today's labor force and preventive measures

Abstract: In recent years, mental disorders among Japan’s labor force have emerged as a major issue, with statistics showing that nearly 60% of workers experience stress on the job, and approximately one million have developed mood disorders as a result. Dealing with workers suffering from mental disorders has become a demanding task for employers, and preventive measures are being sought. The Guidelines for Maintaining and Improving Workers’ Mental Health released by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) in 2006 calls for four types of mental health care (self-care, care by management and supervisors, care by industrial health staff, etc. placed at offices, and care by external resources), and as primary preventive measures, self-care, care by management and supervisors, and improvement of work environments are being examined. Meanwhile, in providing employees with support for reinstatement after mental health-related absences, pre-reinstatement rehabilitation programs (known in Japan as “rework programs”) are drawing much attention as a means of bridging gaps in perception between mental health care professionals and employers. Moving forward, to implement more effective preventive measures, industrial health specialists, human resources divisions and management must share a common vision for mental disorder countermeasures incorporating the concept of “work engagement,” and supplement and cooperate with one another’s efforts to develop these countermeasures.

The family in human resource management

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to discuss the types of family policy traditionally adopted by Japanese companies and the family problems they entail. First of all, I examined issues such as the payment requirements of family allowance and the method of selecting employees for transfer. The results suggest that companies assumed the normal model to be a male worker in a household with a full-time housewife, and undertook personnel management on that basis. Companies expected their employees’ wives to ease their husbands’ stress when it spilled over from work into the home, but forbade their employees from bringing stress from family and home life into their work (the unidirectional stress spillover hypothesis). Next, I examined two problems in the family being paid attention to in recent years—namely, work-family conflicts and a decline in wives’ marital satisfaction. These are caused by long working hours and led to mental health disorders among employees and their families. Companies were having to cope with employees suffering from depression and taking time off work. In reality, therefore, the boundary between work and family or home life was extremely fluid, and a bi-directional impact arose. In recent years, work life balance has been advocated. This is a rationale and policy to the effect that work and family or home life should be balanced, and is premised on the bi-directional hypothesis of work and family. In future, human resource management will need to be steered in this kind of direction.

Labor management relations during high economic growth : japanese style labor management relations

Abstract: This research paper defines the concept of labor-management relations broadly as “relations between a corporation (management) and workers (worker class),” and carries out a comparative analysis of labor-management relations during the period of high economic growth and the present. Generally, labor-management relations are often treated as relations between a corporation (management) and a labor union. However, in these times when the rate of unionization has declined to a low 17.7%, a variety of labor problems arise that fall outside the framework of that relationship. Compared with the present, the fact that the relationship between labor unions and corporations can be used as the framework for analysis in many cases is itself a characteristic of the high economic growth period. The fountainhead of labor-management relations during the period of high economic growth is “The Three Guiding Principles of the Productivity Movement” publicized in 1955. The Japanese economy had recovered to the level where the country was “no longer in the postwar period,” and striving for future growth through modernization was sought by national consensus. Corporations (management) and workers, who heatedly confronted each other repeatedly, constructed a labor-management mechanism to strive for modernization by instead transforming the incompatibility between productivity improvement and employment preservation into an opportunity for progress as each side raised the respective goals. This was “harmonious labor-management relations” as a collective with the shared fate of growing together as they persevered to achieve goals in their respective interests.

The Present Situation and Issues of the Labour Relations Commission System

Abstract: 1946, the system of Labour Relations Commissions (LRCs) was introduced in Japan. LRC members are divided equally among those representing the public interest, workers and employers, respectively, with a Secretariat to assist in administration. Each of Japan’s 47 prefectures has its own LRC, with a Central Labour Relations Commission in Tokyo, making a total of 48 LRCs. These exercise their various powers as independent administrative agencies. The main duties of LRCs are threefold. They consist of (i) issuing administrative orders to provide relief for labor unions and workers from unfair labor practices committed by employers so as to protect the right to organize, (ii) handling or “adjusting” collective labor disputes arising between labor unions and employers or employers’ groups by means of conciliation, mediation and arbitration procedures, and (iii) conciliating individual labor disputes arising between individual workers and employers, regardless of whether a labor union is involved or not. The functions of (i) and (ii) are handled by all LRCs, while (iii) is provided by LRCs in 44 prefectures. The LRC system has made a huge contribution to the formation of industrial relations and labor practices in Japan since World War II. Today, however, both the industrial structure and the labor market have changed, the organization rate of labor unions is in gradual decline, and collective industrial disputes have also decreased in number. In view of this, continuous efforts are being made to improve the LRC system and review its deployment, in order to identify how the system should be maintained and developed in future.

Japan's period of high economic growth and science and technology education : the role of higher education institutions

Abstract: The intent of this paper is to examine quantitative expansion in technology education during the high economic growth period, and its consequences, with a particular focus on the reinforcement of science and technology at institutions of higher education. Over the 1955-1975 period the number of science and technology students nearly quintupled and the bulk of this growth was the result of three governmental plans to boost student capacity in these fields: (1) 'the 8000-student plan'; (2) 'the 20,000-student plan'; and (3) 'the rapid increase plan'. The first two of these were essentially a part of Japan's manpower strategy aimed at achieving economic growth. However, even amid favourable economic conditions the implementation of these plans did not progress smoothly and in particular it was difficult to regulate the quantitative scale of growth at public (non-national) universities and private universities. For this reason the government was forced to provide massive financial support for these institutions in exchange for cooperation with the plan. Also, while the effort to reinforce science and technology education involved the establishment of a new school format known as 'colleges of technology', most of the quantitative expansion during this period took place in the undergraduate faculties of universities.

Return to work following mental health-related absences: effective evidence-based reinstatement support

Abstract: In response to requests from employers, the Department of Mental Health of the Panasonic Health Insurance Organization administers a reinstatement support panel to facilitate the return to work of employees who have been absent due to mental health issues. Since 2006, before convening a pre-reinstatement panel meeting for each patient, we have been conducting questionnaire surveys and performing various psychological tests during medical checkups, so as to examine correlations between survey and test findings and employees’ performance after returning to work. The aim is to identify and clarify various factors influencing employees after returning to work, and the evidence obtained has been applied to provide more effective support. It has been found that generally, subjects who communicate well with healthcare personnel, Human Resources Department staff, and supervisors have a favorable prognosis after returning to work. In April 2013 a new reinstatement system for employees with mental health issues was introduced, under which a reinstatement support team is established for each employee with mental health issues to aid their return to work and minimize the risk of further mental health-related absences after reinstatement.

What types of companies take a proactive approach to mental health

Abstract: The author analyzed individual data from the JILPT-implemented “Research on Mental Health Management in the Workplace” and studied factors that influence workplace mental health. In analyzing individual data, the author looked at the influence that explanatory variables have on four explained variables, using past experimental studies as a reference. Viewed comprehensively, the results of analyses reveal the following four important findings. (i) Differences among business categories: Analysis showed that those categories showing the most concern for mental health are “electricity, gas, heat supply and water” and “information and communications,” while those showing the least concern include “transport and postal services,” “wholesale and retail trade” and “eating and drinking places, accommodations.” (ii) Differences depending on size of business establishment. Even when controlling for the influence of various variables, larger enterprises tend to have greater concern for mental health. (iii) The issue of non-regular employees: working as a non-regular employee appears to bring disadvantages in terms of mental health. However, many enterprises do not consider changes in the number of non-regular employees as related to mental health issues. (iv) Treatment of employees on sick leave. Enterprises that take treatment of employees on sick leave more seriously tend to have more concern for mental health, regardless of their size. From the above results, it is thought that giving priority to specific business categories, small and medium-size enterprises, non-regular employees, and other vulnerable populations will provide a shortcut to the resolution or alleviation of mental health issues.