Labor Laws in Japan Relocation

Today's post comes to you courtesy of "Kido Conseil"; http://www.kidoconseil.com.

For any labor & employment law issues, I would highly recommend contacting Ms. Emi KIDO on kido@kidoconseil.com. Thank you Emi-san for this great information.

Increase of the Kosei Nenkin (Employees’ Pension) Insurance Rate

The premium rate of the Kosei Nenkin Insurance increased from 16.412% to 16.766% (equally shared between employer and employee: 8.383%) on September 1, 2012.

Minimum hourly wage will be changed as follows from October 1, 2012

Tokyo: 850 JPY

Kanagawa: 849 JPY

Saitama: 771 JPY

Chiba: 756 JPY

Re-employment system after the retirement age

All the employees who request to continue working after their retirement age should be re-employed up to 65 years of age as from April 1, 2013 due to a rise in pension eligibility age. 

The exception can be made for those who are deemed to become incapable of pursuing their duties because of physical or mental injury, etc. The guidelines will state the details.

The transitional measures can be provided in case where the re-employment agreement has been already concluded.

Transitional measures:

April 1, 2013 – March 31, 2016	61 years of age
April 1, 2016 – March 31, 2019	62
April 1, 2019 – March 31, 2022	63
April 1, 2022 – March 31, 2025	64
April 1, 2025 and thereafter	65

Exemption of Health and Employees’ Pension Insurance premiums during Maternity Leave

The employer and the employee are exempt from paying the Health and Employees’ Pension Insurance premiums during the Maternity Leave, as well as during the Childcare Leave. This will be effective within 2 years from August 22, 2012.

Change of the minimum period of Japanese pension coverage

The requirements for a minimum period of Japanese pension coverage will be reduced to 10 years  in lieu of 25 years.  This will be effective as from October 2015. 

Attention is required for filing an application of lump-sum withdrawal payments.  Once the lump-sum withdrawal payments are received, the total coverage periods will no longer be valid to apply for other Japanese benefits.  

Those who meet the requirements of Social Security Agreement between the contracted countries and Japan may be entitled to totalize the coverage periods and receive the benefits. 

The countries totalizing the Japanese coverage periods:

Germany, U.S.A., Belgium, France, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Czech, Spain, Ireland, Brazil and Switzerland (as of August 31, 2012)

Countries under negotiation: Hungry, Luxembourg, India, Sweden and China.