Companies are increasingly looking to bring back former employees who quit for family reasons or because of a spouse's transfer.
The system mostly benefits women who left to raise young children or care for relatives but can also be utilized by men.
Miho Fujii was 33 in summer 2003 when she resigned from Teijin Pharma Ltd., a pharmaceutical company in the Teijin business group, where she was in charge of planning and sales strategies. Her husband had been transferred to Britain and she decided to quit so she and their young daughter could join him.