Suchergebnisse

The transformation of Japanese employment relations evaluates the impacts of deregulatory reforms on the employment relations of regular white-collar workers in Japan. Focusing on the aspects of employment relations such as contracts and mobility, this book takes a sociological approach that emphasizes the historical and political dynamics between the state, firm and labor behind institutional changes. The examples of deregulatory reforms include the expansion of the external labor market, the establishment of discretionary working time regulations, and the introduction of results-oriented labor management practices. The results of these reforms were the increase of non-regular employment that highlight the deep segmentation between regular and non-regular contracts, and the further intensification of effort-bargain for regular workers that even justifies unpaid overtime. All of these consequences, in policy outcomes and in the changes in employment relations, were clearly produced by the declining strength of labor in all levels of social negotiation, which the book concludes is 'reform without labor.'.

"This discussion paper examines the institutionalization process of a non-regular employment form especially focusing on the establishment of the temporary dispatching work (haken) system. The institutionalization process of the haken system can be divided into three periods: delegalisation (1947-86), legalisation (1986-99), and diffusion (1999-). Declining labor strength, the emergence of deregulation bodies, and the changing attitude of the Ministry of Labor (MHLW) characterize the legal developments. Together with the liberalization of private job placement and the expansion of fixed-term contract work, temporary work became an important sources of flexible and skilled labor, and expanded more rapidly than other employment forms in the late 90s. In this development, temporary help firms started to reframe their business as 'personnel services,' and have positioned themselves to replace the traditional firm-internal supply of mobile employees such as shukkô and tenseki with external dispatched employees of temporary help firms." (author´s abstract)

"Changes in the structure and regulation of employment in Japan differentially impact men and
women. The labor force participation of Japanese women is increasing, but women's
employment is concentrated in relatively deregulated and flexible forms of non-standard and
precarious employment. Women and men have relatively equal levels of unemployment at
present, but the flexibility which characterizes part-time and temporary work lands women
into the ranks of the unemployed throughout their life course, while men are more likely to
experience unemployment at the entry and exit points to the labor market. Unemployment
measures are directed mainly at alleviating the sources of male unemployment. Employment
deregulation in Japan embodies varying degrees of re-regulation depending on the gender
composition of work types. Part-time work is undertaken primarily by women, and remains
relatively deregulated and unprotected. Temporary work regulations vary according to
whether the occupations are typically performed by women (deregulated temporary work) or
men (tightly regulated temporary work). Working hours have been deregulated for both men
and women, but coupled with the deregulation of temporary work in female-dominated
occupations, the change poses a greater disadvantage for women. The recent reform of the
Equal Employment Opportunity Law in Japan, while responding in part to social demands for
strengthening the regulation of equality, remains unenforceable. The analysis concludes that
rather than more equality in employment, recent Japanese developments point to the
institutional embedding of a gender segmented labor market, with men continuing in
relatively protected and regulated standard employment and women relegated to flexible and
deregulated employment."[author´s abstract]