Part-time and temporary workers comprised 34.6 percent of the nation's workforce in 2003, up 7.1 percentage points from 1999, mainly due to corporate efforts to cut labor costs, according to a labor ministry survey released this week.
The poll by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry shows that firms are replacing full-time employees with cheaper part-time labor.
The survey found that 65.4 percent of workers were employed full time as of Sept. 30, compared with 72.5 percent in the previous survey four years earlier.