89.1% of Japan's 661,000 Local Government Fiscal-Year Appointees Work Part-Time and 75.8% Are Women — Outside the 19-Hour-25-Minute Line Sit Another 452,697

Part-time589,33889.1%

Full-time72,03010.9%

By sex

Women 501,182 (75.8%) / Men 159,733 (24.2%)

Top five occupations

General clerical32.6%

Skilled and manual13.8%

Nursery staff8.5%

Teachers and lecturers4.9%

Education support3.9%

The survey counts only staff appointed for six months or more and working at least 19 hours 25 minutes a week, half of a regular officer's hours. Outside that line sit a further 452,697 people, of whom 319,700 are fiscal-year appointees. The total counted comes to 742,424, down 301, or 0.04%, on the year.

661,000 of 742,000

A survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications counts 742,424 temporary and non-regular staff at local authorities[1].

The composition is 661,368 fiscal-year appointees, 89.1%; 76,016 temporary appointees, 10.2%; and 5,040 special-service non-regular staff, 0.7%[1].

By tier of government, municipalities account for 565,737, or 76.2%, and prefectures for 176,687, or 23.8%[1]. The concentration is on the side closest to residents.

Nine in ten are part-time and more than three-quarters are women

Within those 661,368 the distribution is lopsided. Full-time appointments number 72,030, or 10.9%, and part-time 589,338, or 89.1%[1]. Nearly nine in ten work shorter hours than regular staff.

Sex is lopsided too. Women number 501,182, or 75.8%, and men 159,733, or 24.2%[1]. Sex was unrecorded for 453, so the two do not sum to the total[1].

Full-time fell by 1,919 and part-time rose by 1,386

Against the previous year the composition has moved. In FY2023 full-time stood at 73,949, or 11.2%, and part-time at 587,952, or 88.8%[2].

Full-time is down 1,919 and part-time up 1,386. A net fall of 533. The total barely moved; the composition shifted one way.

What the work is

General clerical staff number 215,422, or 32.6%, the largest group, followed by technical and manual staff at 90,999, or 13.8%, and nursery teachers at 56,347, or 8.5%[1]. Teachers and lecturers follow at 4.9%, education support staff at 3.9%, nurses at 2.9%, library staff at 2.8% and after-school childcare staff at 2.7%.

Counter service, childcare, school meals, libraries, somewhere to go after school. Much of what residents encounter when they deal with a local authority is carried by these people.

The document defines the categories. Technical and manual staff includes school meal cooks. Clerical assistants are general clerical staff performing support work for regular staff[1].

The system started in April 2020

The fiscal-year appointment system began in April 2020. Until then the rules covering temporary and non-regular local authority staff were scattered across different provisions, and no end-of-term allowance could be paid. The amendment unified the framework and allowed the allowance. It was intended to improve conditions.

The term is nonetheless within a single fiscal year. It ends at the year's close and a fresh appointment follows. The same person often continues, but not as a continuation in the system's own terms.

Clerical assistants average 1,118 yen an hour

Pay is surveyed too, as an hourly rate averaged across authorities without weighting.

Clerical assistants average 1,118 yen across 2,375 authorities, library staff 1,163 yen across 1,385, nursery teachers 1,269 yen across 1,377, consumer affairs advisers 1,502 yen across 866, and compulsory-education teachers and lecturers 1,697 yen across 1,207[1]. The figures include the regional allowance equivalent.

The average is across authorities, not across people. An authority with many staff and one with few each count once.

Authorities paying 1,000 yen or less fell from 1,077 to 243

The distribution is published. For clerical assistants the most common band is above 1,000 and up to 1,100 yen, with 1,078 authorities, while 243 pay 1,000 yen or less[1].

The previous year used different bands. In FY2023, 36 authorities paid 900 yen or less and 1,041 paid above 900 up to 1,000, so 1,077 paid 1,000 yen or less[2], out of 2,505.

Authorities at 1,000 yen or less fell from 43.0% to 10.2%. The average moved too, from 990 yen in FY2020 and 1,059 yen in FY2023[3] to 1,118 yen. Up 128 yen, or 12.9%, in three years.

The counting line sits at half of regular hours

The survey defines its scope this way.

Covers staff appointed for six months or more whose weekly working hours are 19 hours 25 minutes (half those of regular staff) or more.

So anyone under six months, and anyone under 19 hours 25 minutes a week, is not in the 742,424.

The same document gives the number outside. It is 452,697, of whom 319,700 are fiscal-year appointees, 121,934 special-service non-regular staff and 11,063 temporary appointees[1]. Together, the temporary and non-regular workforce at local authorities comes to roughly 1.2 million.

They are not bunched just above the line

If part-time accounts for 89.1%, are most of them just above the line? The same document has a table that settles it.

Of the 589,338 part-time appointees, 64,055 (10.9%) work 19 hours 25 minutes to under 23 hours 15 minutes, 285,468 (48.4%) work 23 hours 15 minutes to under 31 hours, 175,502 (29.8%) work 31 hours to under 37 hours 30 minutes, and 64,313 (10.9%) work 37 hours 30 minutes or more[1].

The band just above the line holds 10.9%. The other 89.1% work 23 hours 15 minutes or more. The largest band is 23 hours 15 minutes to under 31, which the document says covers patterns such as three days at 7 hours 45 minutes, four days at 7 hours, or five days at 6 hours.

Another 10.9% work 37 hours 30 minutes or more

The same 10.9% sits at the other end. 64,313 people work 37 hours 30 minutes or more a week and are classed as part-time.

Part-time means only that the hours are shorter than a regular post's. A minute less is enough.

By occupation the shares differ. Working 37 hours 30 minutes or more: 9,831 of the 41,399 part-time nursery teachers, or 23.7%; 13,541 of 79,732 technical and manual staff, or 17.0%; and 17,845 of 195,586 general clerical staff, or 9.1%[1].

Close to one in four part-time nursery teachers works 37 hours 30 minutes or more.

Different occupations cluster just above the line. In the 19 hours 25 minutes to under 23 hours 15 minutes band: education support staff at 21.7%, teachers and lecturers at 20.0%, after-school childcare staff at 18.1%[1] — all school-related.

"Barely moving" applies only inside the line

The total is down 301, or 0.04%, on the year[1], which reads as stasis. Adding the outside changes it.

Inside the line, fiscal-year appointees fell from 661,901[2] to 661,368, down 533. Over the same period, outside the line they rose from 306,376[2] to 319,700, up 13,324.

Inside and outside together, the figure went from 968,277 to 981,068 — up 12,791, or 1.3%.

What fell was special-service non-regular staff

The total outside the line fell from 476,615[2] to 452,697, down 23,918. That fall sits in one category.

Special-service non-regular staff outside the line went from 160,969[2] to 121,934, down 39,035. Fiscal-year appointees rose by 13,324 and temporary appointees by 1,793.

Inside and outside combined, the total went from 1,219,340 to 1,195,121, down 24,219. Broken out, what fell was special-service non-regular staff; fiscal-year appointees rose.

Inside and outside, the same people carry it

Drawing the line at half of regular hours makes about six in ten visible. Someone working 19 hours 25 minutes is counted; someone working 19 hours 20 minutes is not. There is a rationale for where the line sits, but the 450,000 outside it belong in view alongside the figures.

For those 450,000, neither sex nor occupation nor the distribution of hours appears in this document. Only for the inside is it known that more than three-quarters are women.

Public services on the ground are carried by women working shorter hours than a regular post. The same shape connects to the unpaid-work imbalance in "no time" is not an individual problem（このサイトの記事）. The question is who can take work whose term ends every year and whose hours sit somewhere between half a regular post and just under one.

What is not known

What is known: the numbers inside the line and their composition, and the headcount outside. Three things are not.

The first is what the 450,000 outside look like. Neither sex nor occupation nor hours is published.

The second is how long the same people stay. The term is one fiscal year, and the survey counts heads each 1 April. Whether they are the same people as last year is not shown.

The third is how hourly pay varies by area. Which prefectures the 243 authorities paying 1,000 yen or less sit in is not given, so this document cannot be checked against local minimum wages.

How the choice of indicator drives the result was covered in designing outcome indicators（このサイトの記事）; here the denominator itself is set by where the line is drawn. What is not counted is unlikely to become the object of policy.

Further Reading

• 『生活保障のガバナンス -- ジェンダーとお金の流れで読み解く』 (Governance of Livelihood Security: Reading Through Gender and Money Flows)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Mari Osawa, Yuhikaku). An examination of whose living is supported by what, traced through gender and the flow of money. Useful for reading the imbalance among those who deliver public services from the system side.

References

FY2024 Survey on the Operation of the Fiscal-Year Appointment System (Appointment Counts) — MIC, Local Public Service Personnel Department (2024). Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

Survey Results on the Fiscal-Year Appointment System (Overview of Operation) — Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (2024). Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

FY2023 Survey on the Operation of the Fiscal-Year Appointment System (Appointment Counts) — MIC, Local Public Service Personnel Department (2023). Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications