6 - Segmentation of the labor market

Summary

Employment status, firm size, and labor market segmentation

The efforts to deregulate the labor market shifted some portions of the labor force from the market for full-time regular employees to other markets. Data from the Shugyo Kozo Chosa (Survey of Employment Structure) indicates that the percentage of male workers casually employed as non-regular employees (hiseiki koyosha) rose from 9.0 percent in 1992 to 10.1 percent in 1997. For women the figures rose from 37.3 to 42.2 percent (table 6.1). Using a different categorization, the 2000 Labor White Paper (Kosei Rodo Sho 2000: 110 and p. 63 of the appendix) informs us that the number of hiseishain (those not considered to be company employees) was 27.5 percent in 1999. The Labor Force Survey (Rodoryoku Chosa) yields yet another figure: the percentage of employees who are ordinary operatives (joyo koyosha), indicating that the number of rinjiko and hiyatoi, who are on daily wage rates or on contracts of less than one year, rose from 5.4 percent of all employees in 1990 to 7.1 percent in 2001 (Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu 2002a: 35). (This data includes nearly all part-timers as ordinary employees because they are on one-year contracts.) Whichever data is used, however, the evidence is that casualization is advancing, and surveys of management indicate that it is occurring in order to contain labor costs and to enhance the discretion of management in the use of labor (see the results of a survey taken by the Sanwa Research Institute in 2000 in Kosei Rodo Sho 2001a: 167–70, and in the appendix on pp.