Flawed Survey Threatens Abe’s Plan to Fight Japan’s Labor Shortage
- Survey cited in parliament turns out to be riddled with errors
- Opposition seek to halt bill they say will cause more hardship
Shinzo Abe
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
An error-ridden survey is hampering what Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called a "historic" bid to combat a labor shortage in the rapidly aging nation by making workplaces more flexible.
The survey snafu has tripped up Abe’s plan to expand a program that pays employees for output, regardless of hours worked. The Japanese leader told parliament last month that workers on such contracts tended to put in fewer hours than their peers, but the government survey he cited was later shown to contain hundreds of errors -- including one employee doing 45 hours overtime in a single day.