Japan to extend special measure for job subsidy plan

Japan’s labour ministry will be extending a special measure under the government’s employment adjustment subsidy plan for the next three months, it announced on August 28.

Under the original scheme, companies that put employees on paid leave are given subsidies to cover up to two-thirds of the amount of leave allowances.

However, with the special measure, which was introduced to help reduce the number of workers losing their jobs during the pandemic, the coverage is raised to up to 100% for small companies.

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In addition, the upper limit on the amount of subsidies is raised to ¥15,000 per day per employee from ¥8,370.

But labor minister Katsunobu Kato told a news conference that the special measure will be phased out unless the employment situation worsens rapidly.

As of August 27, the number of applications had totaled more than 980,000, with decisions having been made on the distribution of nearly ¥1 trillion in subsidies.

The scheme still has roughly ¥600 billion in financial resources. But the money could dry up if the number of furloughed employees increases.