Deputy Prime Minister Katsuya Okada has instructed the government to cut new hires of civil servants for fiscal 2013 by 70 percent compared with the number in fiscal 2009, a much steeper reduction than the 40 percent in a recent proposal, sources said Friday.
The instruction from Okada, who is tasked with administrative reforms, is part of the administration's spending cuts designed to make a consumption tax increase more palatable to the public, the sources said.
"There will be no exemption" to the sharp cuts in hiring, whether it concerns personnel in the Self-Defense Forces, prisons, the coast guard or the regional branches of the central government, Okada was quoted as saying.
The government said Tuesday it will try to slash new recruitment of national public servants in the fiscal year starting in April 2013 by more than 40 percent compared with fiscal 2009, when the figure totaled 8,511. The latest instruction would reduce the number of new hires to 2,500.
The government plans to submit the consumption tax hike bills to the Diet later this month.
Okada's instruction will likely inflame bureaucrats because it would mean slashing new hires for the third consecutive year from fiscal 2011, the sources said.
The instruction comes on the heels of a recently enacted law that stipulates reducing the salaries of national public servants by an average of 7.8 percent.
Discontent is running high among public servants as the government is unlikely to abide by its pledge to cut the number of Lower House members anytime soon, the sources said.