While the public sector has been partly privatized and some of its social services outsourced, personnel management and pay systems of public sector employees have been revised. As a result, the number of regular employees has fallen and the number of temporary and part―time employees has increased, leading to a public sector working poor problem. The Japan Association for Social Policy Studies held the symposium “Changing Personnel Management and Employment Structure in the Public Sector” at the spring 2016 conference to discuss the current problems of workers in the public sector.The symposium consisted of four papers and two commentaries. In this article, the author has summarized the papers, comments and discussions by participants.In their presentations, the authors conducted discussion and debate about the following points : the impact of newly introduced personnel appraisal systems on the publicness and professional nature of public sector, the main features of the newly introduced personnel appraisal system in local governments, the conditions of temporary employees in public sector jobs along with low―paid workers in outsourced public services, and changes in childcare work caused by the privatization of childcare centers. In addition, some of the issues discussed in the symposium included the publicness and professionalism of public employment, changing demands of public service and duties of public servants, the relationship between diversified personnel appraisal systems and trade unions in local governments, and gender―related influences of public sector privatization.

This paper examines how Japan’s recent public sector reform has changed the employment structure of the public sector, the nature of how public employees work, and the character of Japanese public sector work, especially considering the recent trend of personnel management reform triggered by the civil service reform.First, this paper aims to define the characteristics of public sector work. Then it surveys the types and the number of Japanese public sector employees, and examines the recent trend of employment reduction in the Japanese public sector, while referring to the background policies of the public sector reform. Also, this paper explores how the recent reforms and the reduction in the number of public employees have changed the employment structure of the Japanese public sector.Next, this paper characterizes the traditional personnel management system in the Japanese public sector. And then, it surveys the background of the civil service reform that has been developing since around 2000, and analyzes how the reform is transforming the personnel management system in the Japanese public sector.Lastly, this paper argues how the transformation of the employment structure and the personnel management system have changed the characteristics of public sector work, and what kind of problems this transformation involves from the viewpoint of the publicness of public sector work.

In April, 2014, a part of the local public officer act was revised, and the local government was obliged to introduce the performance appraisal system. It is completely carried out from this April, 2016. As a result, it would be applied to all public employees until now, because it was already applied to a government official from 2009.Why is it that the performance appraisal system was introduced daringly, until now though there was the evaluation of work performance system ?The introduction of this performance appraisal system did not come out alone suddenly. It is a “mop―up” of the movement for at least these past several decades to change the way of public employee’s work and treatment fundamentally.This paper considers the change of the way of working of the local public service worker from the following points, 1） the contents of the performance appraisal system submitted and its characteristic, 2） the actual situation of the appraisal system of Tokyo Metropolitan, Kanagawa prefecture, Osaka and Kyoto, 3） the countermeasure of labor unions to the performance appraisal.

Providers of public services are being diversified. However, it seems that such diversification increases the numbers of non―regular employees and the working poor. We report this based on the results of our surveys of temporary and non―regular employees of local governments （non―regular public employees） and employees in the private sector who work in projects where an order is placed by the local government （including commissioned projects, specified manager system projects, or public enterprises）. Unlike regular public employees, non―regular public employees have neither protection in the legal system nor compensation for limitations on basic labor rights. They differ from regular public employees and non―regular employees in the private sector in that they are not covered by legal protections enjoyed by those workers. The labor conditions of employees who work in projects in which an order is placed by the local government are strongly restricted by both their direct employer and the regulations governing procurement by the local government that places the order. The fact that the contractor bids on the project makes the problem more serious by forcing down prices and wages. The problem of the government―made working poor demands urgent resolution.

Along with the development of welfare states, the public sector has played a significant role in integrating women into better employment and promoting gender equality. By contrast, the size of the female workforce in the public sector in Japan has been small, and both national and local governments are not proactive employers of women. However, childcare teachers have been an exception. Local governments were major employers by the mid―1990s and these teachers were organized by public sector unions. Through employment in the public sector, they have, to some degree, earned public recognition as workers in a respectable occupation for women with fair employment conditions. Nevertheless, their occupational status and employment conditions have been undermined not only by the transformation of public sector employment in the 2000s. The question is why and how this on―going degradation and deterioration of care work have been socially and politically justified. First, I show that both the national and local governments have been preparing for a policy shift since the early 1970s by diminishing their role to set the working conditions for childcare teachers in the public sector as the reference point for the working conditions of childcare teachers as a whole. Second, taking the case of the revised pay scale in Osaka City, I analyze its policy process and the downward pressure on the pay rates of public sector childcare teachers exerted by the pay rates of those in the private sector, where there is a large gender disparity and pay is lower than the average for the industry as a whole. In this review, I argue that the government is now taking the role of reproducing unequal gender relations in care work by both rejecting the gender equal route that could be taken through public sector employment and concealing the gender bias built into Japan’s “Promoting Women’s Active Participation” policy.

This article attempts to clarify recent changes in the labor conditions of public servants from the perspectives of public responsibility and occupational professionalism. The current trend in public sector work can be summarized as non―regularization and marketization. One third of public employees in local governments are temporary or part―time non―regular workers. The number of cases of privatization of public services being conducted through subcontracting and the designated administrator system is growing. As a result, regular civil servants engaged in public sector work believe that their work is losing its “public character” and they feel it difficult to serve residents’ needs. The rising rate of personnel changes and transfers outside occupational specialties at the same time that the number of public employees is being reduced is leading to a situation in which public employees are restricting themselves to their assigned jobs and declining to show interest in other persons.

This paper reconsiders and illustrates the future direction of employment for disabled people. Since around 2000, the number of employed disabled people has increased, driven by the ongoing reform of relevant laws and frameworks. The 2013 reform, which followed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, marked a turning point in that it paid attention to quality improvement as well. However, the quality aspect is not yet sufficient.The quantity and quality growth of employment for disabled people is not merely a matter of guaranteeing the labor rights of disabled people, but we should aim for a symbiotic society that benefits all people.I investigated the benefits of employing disabled people in the workplace, believing that their employment leads to decent work. The investigation revealed the following three points : First, the benefits of employing disabled people range widely from work/role division to new business development. Second, important for achieving such benefits are the utilization of supporting organizations and frameworks, and unconventional thinking about employment for disabled people. Third, the promotion of employment for disabled people requires consistent frameworks from the individual level to the policy level. This report is based on that investigation.

Employment of disabled people importantly influences disabled people’s QOL, making it necessary to analyze the disabled people employment promotion policy from the QOL viewpoint. Thus, this study, first, examines and summarizes South Korea’s disabled people employment―related laws, including their changes, contents, overview, and characteristics. Second, using the Employment Promotion System Assessment Tool for Persons with Disabilities from the Perspective of Quality of Life （QOL―EPAT） from the QOL viewpoint, South Korea’s disabled people employment promotion system and policy are assessed. Third, based on the assessment results, the system and policy are examined from the QOL viewpoint. The assessment revealed that, of QOL―EPAT areas, the psychological area was the lowest at 53.06％, with items under this category all being under 3 points, assessed lower than the category of employment safety and safety of life items. The system and policy regarding the psychological health thus need to be improved.

This paper examines day nursery project in early twentieth century Japanese social policy framework by analyzing the Survey Lists of Relief Services of the Poor （1911）, which was published by Central Charity Association. The outline of the child protective service ― which contained child care, day nursery project, preventing child abuse and education for poor child ― was summarized and examined in this paper.There are two conclusions. First, the day nursery project was expected to accomplish two different purposes ― cutback on expenditure and setting up familial child care for poor children. Second, it could be suggested that Takayuki Namae, who was a temporary of the Home Office, contributed to day nursery project’part in the Survey Lists. It means that his experiences about day nursery project as a temporary/professional relief worker in Kobe City and his knowledge on abroad systems were reflected in state level social policy framework.