Nissan Motor Co. will forgo using job-placement agencies and start directly hiring all temporary nonengineering staff in phases beginning in October in an apparent effort to provide employment stability to workers in line with a labor office request, company officials said Wednesday.
Nissan's move may spur other companies to rethink their hiring practices, analysts say, although Toyota and Honda say they have no current plans to follow suit.
Employees hired directly are given more job security than those hired via placement agencies and are eligible for more benefits.
Last year, the Tokyo Labor Bureau demanded that the carmaker improve its employment practice for workers sent by staffing agencies.
Nissan will no longer receive nonengineering workers from those agencies and will change the status of several hundred to direct employment if they wish.
It will offer new six-month contracts that would be extended up to two years and 11 months, as judicial precedents make it difficult to terminate contracts with employees hired for three years or longer, they said.
Acting on a complaint filed by two temps who demanded that Nissan hire them directly, the labor bureau told the company in May last year to provide its staff more job security.