1.Clarification of employers' responsibilities to improve the quality of employment

In order to promote the success of persons with disabilities, employers should actively engage in appropriate employment management, including career development support.

• Reinforcement of assessment 

Public Employment Security Offices (commonly known as "Hello Work") should provide vocational guidance to persons with disabilities who have used the "Employment Choices Support" (tentative name) under the Comprehensive Support for Persons with Disabilities Act. It is a new welfare service for persons with disabilities that utilizes employment assessment methods.

• Training and securing human resources to aid the employment of persons with disabilities

Strengthening the development of professional human resources, for example, by  providing foundation training that imparts knowledge and skills across the welfare and employment fields to personnel responsible for employment support (including employment-related welfare services) for people with disabilities.

2.Further strengthening of coordination between employment and welfare policies

• Training and securing of human resources to support the employment of persons with disabilities
  • Strengthening capacity building of professional human resources, such as providing foundation training for personnel involved in employment support for people with disabilities (including employment-related welfare services) to acquire knowledge and skills in both the welfare and employment fields in a cross-sectional manner.
  • Local vocational centers for persons with disabilities should provide foundation training and work more than ever to develop human resources responsible for employment support for persons with disabilities. In addition, the division of roles among local employment support organizations should be sorted, and the local employment support infrastructure should be developed.

3.Promoting various work styles suited to the diverse employment needs of persons with disabilities

• Persons with disabilities who work between 10 and 20 hours per week under the employment quota system for persons with disabilities:

*Employment quotas are the minimum employment rate of persons with disabilities that employers must employ among all employees.

• In order to expand employment opportunities for persons with severe physical disabilities, persons with severe intellectual disabilities, and persons with psychosocial disabilities who are not subject to employment obligations but have worked at least 10 hours but less than 20 hours per week, employers should be allowed to add the above-mentioned workers when calculating the actual employment rate in a particular case.
• The above measures will directly expand employment opportunities for those with difficulties in securing a prescribed workweek of 20 hours or more. Therefore, the special benefits should be abolished.

• Extension of a special exception in relation to the calculation of persons with psychosocial disabilities in the quota system for employment of persons with disabilities

• In order to promote the employment of persons with psychosocial disabilities, a special calculation exception relating to those persons who work less than 20 to 30 hours per week should be extended.

4.Promoting the employment of persons with disabilities in terms of the quality

With regard to the Levy and Grant System for the employment of persons with disabilities, in order to ensure stable financial management of the System and to promote the improvement of the quality of employment of disabled persons, the increased expenditures for the grants payable for employing persons with disabilities, which is assessed based on the number of persons employed, should be restrained. Instead, the amount restrained should be allocated to subsidies that support companies making efforts to help persons with disabilities get settled in the workplace.

• Payment of  the Adjustment Allowance and Rewards for Those Employing Persons with Disabilities

• In case a company receiving the Adjustment Allowance employs more than a certain number (10) of persons with disabilities who are subject to the allowance, the unit amount of the allowance should be reduced according to the excess number of persons. (27,000 yen per person per month will be halved.)
• In case a company receiving the Reward employs more than a certain number (35) of persons with disabilities who are eligible for the Reward, the Reward should not be paid to the excess number of persons with disabilities.

• Support for companies making efforts to promote the employment of persons with disabilities

• Subsidies should be provided to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that promote employment of persons with disabilities through consulting services provided by private consulting firms in order to solve the problem of the lack of know-how regarding the employment of persons with disabilities in SMEs.
• Subsidies should be provided to companies that are committed to the continued employment of middle-aged and older persons with disabilities.

5.Others

• Promoting the use of the support system for persons with disabilities working at home

• In order to promote further use of the support system for persons with disabilities who work at home, the group registration requirements should be relaxed (the number of persons required for the registration should be lowered from 10 to 5) to encourage more support groups to register.

• Nationwide rollout of a special exception in the calculation of limited liability partnerships

• The special exception in the calculation that allows the aggregation of the actual employment rate of multiple SMEs by utilizing the scheme of business cooperatives is currently permitted for limited liability partnerships (LLP) only in the National Strategic Special Zones but should also be allowed nationwide.

• Promoting the employment of persons with disabilities by reducing the exclusion rate

• The exclusion rate, which was abolished by the 2002 amendment to the Act for Employment Promotion of Persons with Disabilities, but has existed for the time being, will be reduced uniformly by 10 percentage points.