The main purpose of this paper is to examine changes in labor force structure and labor management policies of Toyota Motor Corporation. Toyota has established the so-called Toyota Production System based on the long-term employment of full-time production workers and their acquisition of firm-specific skills as well as on cooperative labor-management relations. Toyota, however, has increased the number of non-typical production workers since 2000. Their number increased from 1,100 in 1998 to 9,800 in May 2004. One of the main reasons for management to increase non-typical workers is to cut labor cost. Toyota management anticipated an intensification of market competition as a result of the shrinkage in the size of domestic markets. Toyota management, however, was concerned that the drastic substitution of non-typical workers for full-time workers would lead to a decline in the quality of firm-specific skills. Thus, it has taken several labor management policies. First, it adopted Senmon Gino Shutoku Seido (a system of acquisition of specialized skills), which was a career development program to expand full-time production workers' scope of skills. The second policy is MR-50 activities which promote the introduction of barrier-free production machines and the standardization of production works. Third, Toyota management has provided opportunities for capable non-typical production workers to be promoted to the status of Toyota's full-time employees. And fourth, it took a policy to promote flexible deployment of production workers across Toyota-group companies so that firm- or workplace-specific skills would be widely shared by workers working for these companies. Since the QCD (Quality, Cost, Delivery) aspects of automobiles depend on the Kaizen competency of full-time production workers, it is expected that Toyota Motor Corporation will not resort to an excessive substitution of non-typical workers for typical workers in the future.

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Today, Japanese young people are said to have a lot of problems with their work. They, for example, tend to quit their jobs easily and work part-time only. The internship program has widely been seen as one of the possible solutions for these problems. The purpose of this paper is to point out the influence of internship on student interns' view of work. The research consists of interviews with 57 students who took part in an internship program by the Consortium of Universities in Kyoto. The main results of the empirical research are as follows: 1. In the internship program, students learn how important the “quality” of jobs is and they get a clearer view of work or jobs 2. Consequently, most of them find that it is possible to have a pleasure in work. 3. They tend to have a pleasure in work when they do the work which they prefer. The research also suggests the importance of the communication between student interns and workers in the companies to which students are assigned. The more closely students interns communicate with workers, it is more likely that they develop a positive view of work.

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