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Useful information on social insurance, subsidies, and labor management.
Delivered in an easy-to-understand manner from the perspective of a labor consultant.
The treatment-improvement add-on: do you ask a shakai hoken roumushi or a gyoseishoshi?
The treatment-improvement add-on splits by stage. Designing the wage system and calculating the wage-improvement amount is work for a shakai hoken roumushi; preparing the plan and the performance report filed with the designating authority is work for a gyoseishoshi. The two rest on different statutes, so no single office can hold itself out as both. We also show how the work and the fees are divided at Yotsuba.
How many employees make work rules mandatory, and what applies no matter how few
Drawing up and filing work rules becomes mandatory once you regularly employ 10 or more workers. Harassment-prevention measures and the measures under the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act, however, are mandatory regardless of headcount, and written notice of working conditions is required from your very first hire. From October 2026, responding to customer harassment also becomes mandatory.
Employment forms and labour management that meet the staffing standard for employment continuation support Type A and Type B
The staffing standard for employment continuation support Type A and Type B is judged not by "how many staff you place" but by "whether the full-time equivalent is enough for the number of users". So designing the scheduled hours of non-full-time and part-time staff, and keeping duty records, tie directly to keeping the designation. Vocational instructors and life-support workers must number, by full-time equivalent, at least the user count divided by ten, at least one of each and at least one full-time; a service-management manager is one or more for up to sixty users (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Ordinance No. 171 of 2006, Articles 186 and 199). The biggest difference is the employment contract: Type A concludes an employment contract with the user, so that user is treated as a worker subject to the minimum wage (Minimum Wage Act Article 4; the reduction exception is Article 7), social insurance and working time. Type B pays a work reward without an employment contract. The designation application goes to a Gyoseishoshi, accounting and tax to a tax accountant.
How is the "100% of take-home pay" equivalent of the postnatal leave support benefit calculated?
The postnatal leave support benefit (shussei-go kyugyo shien kyufu), created on April 1, 2025 under the Employment Insurance Act (Article 61-10), adds 13% on top of childcare leave benefits (in principle 67%) when both parents take childcare leave immediately after a child's birth. The combined 80% is non-taxable and, because social insurance premiums are exempt during leave, comes to roughly 100% of pre-leave take-home pay. This article organizes the benefit, the mechanism behind the "100% of take-home" equivalent, how the 28 days are counted, and how it overlaps with childcare leave benefits.
Stress checks become mandatory for workplaces with fewer than 50 employees from April 2028. What small workplaces should prepare
Stress checks are based on Article 66-10 of the Industrial Safety and Health Act. At present they are mandatory for workplaces with 50 or more ordinarily employed workers and a best-effort obligation for workplaces with fewer than 50. Under the Act Partially Amending the Industrial Safety and Health Act and the Working Environment Measurement Act (Act No. 33 of 2025), the obligation to conduct stress checks will be extended to workplaces with fewer than 50 employees from April 1, 2028. A stress check is conducted once a year, so conducting it once in April 2028 is not the end of it. The "50" is judged by workplace, not by company, and "people counted in the 50" do not necessarily match "workers subject to the check." This article organizes the scope of the mandate and what small workplaces should prepare, based on the MHLW manual for small workplaces (published February 2026).
What happens to social insurance when you hire someone for short hours
At a company with fewer than 51 employees, whether someone joins social insurance is decided by the three-quarters test alone. If both the prescribed working hours per week and the prescribed working days per month are less than three-quarters of those of an ordinary worker, they do not join. Employment insurance is separate: the dividing line is 20 hours a week. A table also sets out the timetable by which the company-size requirement is abolished by October 2035.
Is it all right to keep the mandatory retirement age at 60? Employment securing measures to 65 and employment opportunities to 70
An obligation to employ people until 65 is not the same as an obligation to set the mandatory retirement age at 65. A company may keep a retirement age of 60 and meet the requirement through a continued employment system that covers everyone who wants to stay until 65. Up to 70, what applies is a duty to endeavour, and it covers work opportunities that are not limited to employment. The transitional measure that once allowed selection criteria ended on 31 March 2025. From April 2026, the threshold for the in-service old-age pension moved from 510,000 yen to 650,000 yen, and a new duty to endeavour on the safety of older workers took effect under the Industrial Safety and Health Act.
Which expires first — the period of stay or the employment contract?
The period of stay and the contract term are two clocks running separately. Match the contract to the period of stay and every renewal requires new written conditions; decouple them and the period of stay expires first. Decide which is the anchor before the hire. The renewal cap must now also be stated (Ordinance for Enforcement of the Labor Standards Act, Article 5).
Shall we start by reviewing how you work?
四葉社会保険労務士事務所 (Kohinata, Bunkyo-ku; a 5-minute walk from Myogadani Station on the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line) helps you, starting with a review of your current labour practices.
LINE connects you directly to our representative, Joji Uramatsu. Messages are accepted 24/7 and answered in order.
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