A subcommittee of an advisory council to the labor minister urged Thursday that the monthly sum of unemployment insurance premiums be raised to an amount equal to 1.6 percent of an employee's wages beginning April 1, 2005.
The Labor Policy Council's job-stabilization subcommittee put forward the recommendation in a report on how Japan's employment insurance regime should be improved, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.
The ministry plans to submit bills to the Diet during the current session to revise relevant laws, with the aim of having them go into effect May 1, 2003, though the planned premium rate hike would be implemented two years later.