Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he is confident that the amendment to the law on the dispatch of temporary workers, which has been sent to the Upper House after being approved by the Lower House last week, will pave the way for temporary workers to take regular full-time jobs if they wish to. That may be wishful thinking. One thing that is certain is that the amendment will make it easier for businesses to keep using temporary staff — as long as individual workers are replaced every three years.
The controversial bill — which has been submitted to the Diet for the third time after its earlier versions were scrapped — is part of the Abe administration's drive for deregulation of labor rules. Under the current law, a company cannot use workers from temporary staff dispatch agents on the same job for more than three years, except for those assigned to do jobs in 26 categories that require special skills, ranging from computer programming to translation, product development, marketing and research. The proposed revision will eliminate the three-year limit for workers in all job categories, and businesses can keep using temporary staff for the same jobs as long as individual workers are replaced every three years. Businesses will be required to hear the opinions of their labor unions to do so, but the unions are not given the power to veto the companies' decision.
Workers in the special job categories — who account for roughly 40 percent of temporary workers and can currently work at the same company without term limits — will need to find new jobs when they have worked three years at a firm when the revision takes effect. Workers who have an indefinite employment contract with their dispatch agents — who reportedly account for less than 20 percent of all temporary workers — will be able to work for more than three years at the same firm.