When deciding whether to provide employment-related disability welfare services in Japan, it is necessary to conduct an employment assessment. The original intention was to use this assessment as reference information for persons with disabilities to independently select the services they desired. However, it has been pointed out that the results of these assessments are not made use of in service selections. Currently, the government is preparing a support service for career decision making based on self-selection, utilizing an employment assessment method called ″support for employment choice″. To use this new employment choice support service effectively, it is necessary to clarify the current employment assessment practices and issues, and to obtain perspectives for its effective utilization. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the implementation status and perceived issues of employment assessments in municipalities, which are the agencies that make the decisions on the provision of services using this employment assessment. We surveyed 1,741 municipalities in Japan to determine the status of the implementation of employment assessments and issues related to implementation. We used text mining to analyze open-ended responses, particularly with regard to challenges in conducting employment assessments. From the analysis of the free responses, many issues were identified when using the results of employment assessments in service decisions. The problem was that regardless of the size of the municipality, the results of employment assessments were not being used effectively in determining career paths for people with disabilities. It was found that there is a recognized need to increase the number of social resources in each community and to address the gaps in knowledge and skills for employment assistance and assessment. It became clear that the results obtained from the employment assessments were not being used effectively in situations where employment-related disability welfare services were used, and that the results were becoming formalized. This formalization was influenced by the insufficient number of social resources in the community and the inadequate knowledge and skills of the employment support personnel. As a possible solution, a system of regional collaboration in which support organizations compensate for their lack of services was considered. In Japan, a new service called ″support for employment choice″, which is centered on employment assessments, is set to be created in the next few years. It will be important to discuss the nature of this new service, taking into account the challenges in executing employment assessments to date and perspectives on how to remedy these challenges.
