HAKEN: DISPATCHED WORK IN JAPAN Employment and labor market in Japan Tohoku University Jun Imai Ph.D.

Temporary Help Agency

Regular/non-regular composition in Japanese labor market Regular Non-reg Table 1.1 Regular/non-regular composition of the Japanese labor market from 1956 (%) (source: Statistics Bureau 1959, 1960, 1963, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1978, 1980, 1984, 1988) *From the 1982 survey, employment categories based on the categories utilized in workplaces (such as paato and keiyaku) became available. Numbers until 1979 are based on the terms of contract, and workers with less than a one year contract are categorized as ‘ non-regular ’ employee in this table. This may underestimate the number of non-regular workers until 1979 since there might be some paato or keiyaku workers who had longer contracts but still treated as non-regular members of the workplaces.

Origin of haken workers 1  Shukk ō  a practice of labor lending from parent company to subsidiary (manager and engineer) after the late 1960s  K ō nai ukeoi  a type of subcontracting that dispatch employees to clients’ worksites (from 1950s)  The issue of “life of command”: difficulty to distinguish between illegal dispatching and subcontracting

Origin of haken workers 2  “Worker dispatch” prevailed along the market environmental changes  Internationalization: increasing demand to communicate with foreign firms → telex operator  Oil crises → strong demand of clerical workers on temporary basis  Industrial structural change: machine design, IT engineer  Prevalence of illegal practices → Admonition from Administrative Management Agency （行政管理庁の 勧告）

Making of haken  Tripartite advisory council deliberated the solution, the establishment of the Temporary Dispatching Worker Law (1987)  Put illegal practices of dispatching under the realm of law → which urge dispatching agencies to be responsible employer  Restriction on the applicable occupations to avoid replacement with regular employees (positive list system)  Employment type and registered type

Deregulation of the TDW Law  Strong demand from Japanese employers – New Age Japanese Management (1995)  Strong pressure from the Deregulation Committee  From “positive list” to “negative list”  Extension of the term of dispatch to three years  Revision of the TDW Law in 1997 and 1999  Further revision in 2004: manufacturing lines

Labor market structural change: SSM 8

Expanding non-regular employment in Japan (Employment Status Survey) 9

Dispatched workers: int’l comparison

Who are haken workers?

Haken by occupation, women (numbers in thousands, Stats Bureau)

Haken by occupation, men (numbers in thousands, Stats Bureau)

Occupational characteristics (numbers in thousands, Stats Bureau)

Wages by employment statuses (Rengo: )

年越し派遣村 Tent City for Jobless (a video clip from レイバーネット日本 ) 7Y&feature=player_embedded

年越し派遣村 Tent City for Jobless Where are women? Why do not women appear in the pictures while most non-reg. are women?

Gender division of labor under “corporate-centered” society modified table from Nomura (1998) Large firm Medium, small size firms Self (family) business EmploymentLong-termRelatively long- term Depends upon one’s will IncomeLife-stage adjusted Quasi life-stage adjusted Accumulation of incomes from all family members Welfare (livelihood security) CorporateQuasi corporate Protected sector, pork barrel politics What does wife do? HousewifePart-timersFamily employee