An advisory panel to the labor minister called Thursday for adding people with mental disorders to those who must be hired by private companies to promote the social advancement of people with disabilities.
The proposal was issued by a panel under Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Norihisa Tamura, whose ministry plans to submit a bill to the Diet to revise the law for employment promotion of people with disabilities so that firms will be obliged to hire people with mental disorders beginning in April 2018.
The panel suggested the revision to help people suffering from manic depression or schizophrenia who are officially certified as impaired.
If the bill is enacted, it will represent the first significant expansion in the scope of the mandatory employment law since 1998.