Regular Employment Among Japan's Employment Ice Age Generation Rose by 110,000 in Five Years Against a Target of 300,000 — the Government Adds 200,000 Company Officers to Reach "310,000 in Total"

Under Japan's Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform 2019, concentrated support was launched with the aim of raising regular employment among the core of the employment ice age generation by 300,000[1]. The cohort is defined as those who looked for work between 1993 and 2004, when hiring conditions after the collapse of the bubble economy were severe[2].

The concentrated phase was to run three years, FY2020 to FY2022. After regular employment stalled under the impact of COVID-19, Basic Policy 2022 designated the two years from FY2023 as a second stage[1].

The result sits in the Labour Force Survey. Regular employees went from 9.23 million to 9.34 million, a rise of 110,000[3]. The target was 300,000.

How the government writes it matters. The decision states: "Over the five years from 2019 to 2024, regular employment in the employment ice age generation rose by 110,000 and company officers by 200,000, achieving improved conditions for 310,000 in total"[1].

The target named regular employment. The sentence claiming success adds company officers to it. And 310,000 clears 300,000.

Programme counts and statistical stocks are different things

The Cabinet Secretariat also publishes figures from the programme side. The Cabinet Secretariat records 559,459 placements into regular employment through dedicated Hello Work counters, and 145,032 conversions to regular status through subsidies to employers[4]. Municipal support produced 15,647 regular hires, with 4,586 taken on as national public servants and 14,299 as local public servants[5].

Set the 559,459 placements against the net increase of 110,000 and the gap shows. The first counts people who moved; the second is a difference between stocks. If people left regular employment over the same period, the net figure falls by that much. Neither "the programme failed" nor "559,459 is the result" follows. The two count different things.

The 559,459 carries a note. It is a cumulative count of instances and includes results from outside the target generation[4]. The same person may be counted more than once, and people outside the generation are included.

Support desks went from 81 municipalities to 303

The social participation side moved as well. Municipalities running social withdrawal support desks rose from 81 to 303, and preparatory employment support produced 18,475 instances of social participation[6]. Support toward vocational independence for those facing difficulty in work recorded 1,902,671 uses[7]. That count too is cumulative and includes people outside the generation.

The intermediate employment route took 691 people

One figure sits in a different order of magnitude. Certified employment training businesses under the Act on Self-Reliance Support for the Needy took on 691 people in FY2023[8].

Certified employment training is the route for intermediate employment, in which someone who cannot immediately work at an ordinary company works flexibly with support according to their capacity, aptitude and circumstances[8]. It is the stage between not working and regular employment. Against 440,000 people not working, the route out takes 691 a year. The new framework proposes promoting its use.

The generation's own rates run below the band above it

A reference table in the same document sets the generations side by side. In 2024, the involuntary non-regular rate was 2.2% for ages 31 to 40, 2.3% for 41 to 50 and 3.0% for 51 to 60[2]. The rate of those not working was 2.7% for ages 31 to 40, 2.5% for 41 to 50 and 3.7% for 51 to 60[2].

The core of the ice age generation is aged 41 to 50 as of 2024[2]. On both rates it sits below the 51-to-60 band. On those not working it sits below the 31-to-40 band as well. The decision to wind up a programme named after one generation rests on these figures.

The only indicator that rose was the 30,000 not working

The same document records one other thing that grew.

Line the figures up and the five years read clearly. The population outside the labour force fell from 2.10 million to 1.74 million, a drop of 360,000[9]. Many moved to the working side. Yet the number not working inside that population rose from 410,000 to 440,000[9]. Those not working are defined as the part of the non-labour-force population neither keeping house nor in education.

The non-labour-force population fell by 360,000 while those not working rose by 30,000. Those who could move did; those who could not stayed. The indicator for the group most in need of support is the only one that rose over the five years.

What the other 200,000 consists of

The figure printed beside the 110,000 deserves a look. Company officers rose from 520,000 to 720,000, up 200,000, and the self-employed and similar from 1.01 million to 1.06 million, up 50,000[9].

An increase in officers covers both people promoted at their employer and people who set up their own company. Which route produced the increase cannot be read from this tabulation. Since the 300,000 target was set on regular employees, printing 310,000 calls for an account of what is inside it.

Wages and savings sit outside regular employment

The document sets out what lies ahead. Wage growth for this generation is small relative to other generations, and the wage curve rises more gently than for the generation above[8]. On financial assets, the share of households with savings of 5 million yen or less is larger than for people in their forties a decade ago[8]. With home ownership rates falling, securing housing in old age is expected to become an issue[8].

Care obligations compound it. The number in work who care for a family member is 250,000 higher than for the same age group a decade ago[8].

Separate from whether someone reached regular employment, the gap in savings and housing remains. A single figure for regular employees does not measure any of it.

A third pillar was added for old age

The new framework runs on three pillars: support for employment and improved conditions, staged support toward social participation, and support with old age in view[8]. The third is the addition.

Its content leans toward housing and household finances. From October 2025, a certification scheme for supported housing is created under the amended Housing Safety Net Act[8]. Requests to municipalities to remove age requirements for public housing, and rent reductions on UR housing, continue[8]. The subsidy rate for the household budget improvement service rises from FY2025[8].

Half of an employment programme has moved onto the subject of planning for old age. That people who did not reach regular employment will enter old age as they are is now written into the document as a premise.

The dedicated framework moves to middle-aged support

The framework itself changes. “five years of concentrated effort have produced a degree of result” and set out that support from the following year would run through measures aimed at middle-aged and older workers[2].

The counters have already moved. From FY2025, the dedicated Hello Work counters widened their scope to middle-aged and older workers, roughly 35 to under 60, including the ice age generation[8]. They are no longer counters named after one generation.

The government established the Ministerial Meeting on Support for the Employment Ice Age Generation on 25 April 2025[2] and decided the new framework on 3 June.

The next set of targets has not been fixed

The new framework has no numerical target yet. A comprehensive package including KPIs is to be compiled as a new programme by the end of FY2025[8], with an implementation period envisaged as roughly three years of concentrated effort, through FY2028[8].

What gets measured next is still being decided. The 300,000 target was set on regular employees and the account of its achievement was given as regular employees plus company officers. The material for not repeating that sits on the side of how the indicators are set.

Whether target, indicator and account line up

Set a target, measure an indicator, describe the result. When all three run on the same indicator, what to do next follows from the figures. Here the target was regular employees and the sentence describing the result was regular employees plus company officers. So the argument over what 110,000 means goes unheld while the framework moves on.

As the shared structure of programmes that fail to reach people（このサイトの記事） sets out, those who are not reached do not appear in figures about those who are. For this generation the number not reached is written down as 440,000. It is not absent from the record; it is recorded in a different place.

As 3.456 million consultations over ten years of support for the needy（このサイトの記事） shows, the count of support provided and the number that appears in the statistics measure different things. Whether the distance between 691 people in certified employment training and 440,000 people not working narrows over the next three years is what the new programme will be judged on.

Further Reading

• Underclass 2030: The Ice Age Generation Left Behind（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） by Kenji Hashimoto (Mainichi Shimbun Publishing). A researcher on class structure estimates what happens when this generation reaches old age. Useful for thinking past the figures of 110,000 and 440,000.

References

Basic Framework for a New Support Programme for the Employment Ice Age Generation (Draft) — Cabinet Secretariat, Employment Ice Age Generation Support Promotion Office (2025). Cabinet Secretariat

On Support for the Employment Ice Age Generation (Document 1, First Ministerial Meeting) — Cabinet Secretariat, Employment Ice Age Generation Support Promotion Office (2025). Cabinet Secretariat

Support for the Employment Ice Age Generation — Cabinet Secretariat (2026). Cabinet Secretariat