MAINICHI



 

Japan's labor minister said Tuesday the government has launched a nationwide investigation, after a staff member of a public employment service center in Tokyo posed as a job seeker, in an alleged attempt to inflate job placement targets.

The employee at the Hello Work job center in Tokyo's Sumida Ward applied to nine companies under false identities and succeeded in securing four job offers. Each of Hello Work's 544 offices has its own job placement targets.

Kenichiro Ueno, who heads the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the nationwide probe will check for similar misconduct at all Hello Work job centers.

He said there is a need for strict discipline and proper management of placement targets, and that the ministry will take firm action once the investigation is complete.

The employee had registered two false identities as job seekers and introduced the nonexistent applicants to businesses that had posted job openings.

According to the ministry, the employee at the Hello Work Sumida center is believed to have subsequently declined the four job offers.

The case came to light this fall when the employee used their real name during an interview, prompting the company to notice discrepancies with the application documents. The ministry has since apologized to all nine companies involved.

According to the ministry, job placements that applicants decline are excluded from official statistics, but if a job center is unaware of the withdrawal, the numbers may remain inflated. As of October, four fictitious placements linked to the employee were included in the statistics.

Job centers operating under the Tokyo Labor Bureau, such as Hello Work Sumida, receive guidance from the bureau when they fall below 95 percent of their monthly targets.