Japanese government has encouraged and expanded the private participation on providing employment services in the labor market. It could be possible by means of the deregulation of the laws that regulate the job placement, the labor procurement, the d...
Japanese government has encouraged and expanded the private participation on providing employment services in the labor market. It could be possible by means of the deregulation of the laws that regulate the job placement, the labor procurement, the dispatch of worker and so forth. In addition, as they seek for solutions to overcome their economic crisis and to ensure their competitiveness, they have realized that they need to prioritize the flexibility and effectiveness of the labor operation. To this end, they have improved the laws with which it was possible to exploit the indirect employment in full strength. However, it has caused such a severe labor market polarization that there appears a move to restrict the laws. The thing is, the types of indirect employment, such as the labor procurement service, the dispatch of worker and the infrasubcontract worker, are too complicated to define its legal relations uniformly. Many a Japanese company which is in the pursuit of profit actively exploits such indirect employment as the dispatch of worker or the infrasubcontract because it costs less money on them. Contracts for indirect employment is of a civil contract (Japanese Civil Code Section 632, 656), whereas the disguised outsourcing is categorized into ① the dispatching relationship (the regulation target of the worker dispatch act), ② the subcontracting relationship (the regulation target of the Employment Security Law, or the worker dispatch act), ③ the labor procurement service relationship (the regulation target of the Employment Security Law) depending on the cases. The restriction and the obligation of direct employment is judged according to the respective law's purpose of pursuit and its intent overall. What is learned from the examination of Japanese law system is the fact that the deregulation of the worker dispatch act has exacerbated the problems of indirect employment, and it is a sign of introspection and regrets of Japanese government that their ensuing law revisions have indicated. In other words, it shows that expanding indirect employment can never be a solution for the labor market to reduce labor costs and improve efficiency in this fluctuating economy situation. Such a point in Japan let us know that we are bound to refer to their case, since we have the very similar labor laws and the labor market system.