Submission of work style reform bills to be delayed further

February 28, 2018

Tokyo- Japan's government and ruling coalition are considering further delaying the schedule to submit bills for so-called work style reform to the Diet, the nation's parliament, to the second half of March at the earliest, officials said Wednesday.

The government and ruling camp have aimed to submit the bills in early March, about one week later than the initial schedule. The first postponement was caused by the discovery of improper data in a government survey on work time to explain the benefits of an expansion of the so-called discretionary work system, planned under the bills.

The further delay is likely as scrutinizing the survey results will likely take more time than expected, the officials said.

"If we don't precisely grasp the matter, the government as a whole will not be able to make progress," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, on Wednesday.

Abe was speaking about the discovery of improper data in the survey and inappropriate data comparisons made by the labor ministry.

On checking the facts, Abe said the labor minister will lead the examining process, which will "take a certain amount of time."

Labor minister Katsunobu Kato suggested that his ministry may conduct an additional survey.

The bills will be submitted "after the situation is grasped," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference on Wednesday.

"We'll have to decide whether to consider taking new steps or use the existing data" of the survey, depending on the results of the government's scrutiny, Hiroshi Moriyama, Diet affairs head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told reporters.

Moriyama's remark suggests that the LDP may ask the government to take additional measures to resolve the issue. Jiji Press