At Least 10 Local Govts Padded Employment Data for Disabled

August 22, 2018

Tokyo- At least 10 Japanese local governments have been found to have padded the shares of people with disabilities in their total payrolls.

On Tuesday, the Nagasaki prefectural government and the Matsuyama municipal government in Ehime Prefecture said they included people that should not be counted under labor ministry guidelines when calculating the employment rates.

Similar practices have been found at Akita, Yamagata, Chiba, Shizuoka, Shimane, Ehime and Kochi prefectures as well as the education board of Saitama Prefecture since allegations of such practices by central government agencies emerged last week.

Previously, the Nagasaki government reported its employment rate for disabled people as 2.51 pct as of June. Now, the rate is put at 2.06 pct after recalculations based on the guidelines, standing below the legally required level of 2.5 pct.

The recalculated rate is put at 2.39 pct at the Akita government, down from 2.55 pct, and 1.9 pct at the Shizuoka government, down from 2.61 pct.

The law to promote the employment of disabled people obliges central government agencies, local governments and private-sector companies to hire disabled people so that their shares in the total payrolls reach certain levels.

The guidelines require the employers to check workers' disabilities by using their disability certificates in principle.

Fines are imposed on companies that fail to reach the required level. But there are no such fines for government agencies.

Nagasaki and Matsuyama officials claimed that the problems occurred because their governments did not understand the guidelines well. They denied that the rates were boosted intentionally. Jiji Press