JAPAN
Japan’s Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs has announced that a record 35.4 per cent of Public Servants hired in the fiscal year 2018–19 were women.
The Bureau said this meant its target of ensuring 30 per cent of all hires were female had been exceeded for the fifth straight year.
The Government hired a total of 8,123 individuals during the fiscal year, which ended on 31 March, of whom 2,876 were female.
The Bureau said the ratio of women rose 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier and surpassed the previous high of 34.5 per cent in fiscal year 2016–17.
Of the new recruits, 708 were hired as career-track bureaucrats, meaning they were destined for senior positions.
This included 245 women, or 34.6 per cent of the total — another record high.
The Foreign Ministry had the highest proportion of female recruits among all Ministries and Agencies, at exactly 50 per cent, followed by the Ministry for Farms at 43.4 per cent and the Health Ministry at 42.5 per cent.
However, the proportion of female recruits at the Ministry for Land and the National Public Safety Commission was 25.7 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively, falling short of the national goal of 30 per cent.
Minister in Charge of Civil Service Reform, Mitsuhiro Miyakoshi said he was continuing to push for the provision of working environments that were friendly to women in an effort to increase the number of female recruits.
“Ministries and Agencies have been taking measures to promote female employment, such as offering seminars for job-hunting women,” Mr Miyakoshi said.
Tokyo, 13 April 2019
