[Provisional Translation]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the seventh meeting of the Council for the Realization of Work Style Reform, at the Prime Minister’s Office.

At the meeting, there was discussion on correcting the practice of working long hours and employment among the elderly.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“Today, based on the draft plan put forward by the Secretariat, we had a more concrete discussion on how to amend the relevant laws for correcting the practice of working long hours.

The issue of what the maximum work hours should be for whom is an extremely important discussion, and it should not be decided by a majority vote. In other words, I would like to submit the plan only when it has the support of every one of you. In particular, an agreement needs to be fully reached between the labor side and the employer side. Unless an agreement is reached, unfortunately this legislation cannot be submitted.

We have a little over a month until the action plan is decided in March. I would like to ask everyone to express their views concretely, so that a conclusion that both reflects the actual situation and increases effectiveness is contained in the plan, giving due consideration to the valuable time remaining.

In regard to regulating the maximum hours of overtime work permitted with penalties attached to the regulations, although this has been discussed over many years by the Labor Policy Council, a conclusion has not been reached. Therefore, we established this Council for the Realization of Work Style Reform, with myself as the Chair, whereby labor and management leaders and experts gather together and hold discussions. I would like both the labor and the management sides to hold candid and responsible discussions.

In addition, today we held a discussion on employment among the elderly. With the declining working population, diverse employment opportunities need to be provided to ambitious elderly people in order to ensure the growth potential of Japan. I would like to advance the discussion on promoting employment among the elderly, and to incorporate effective measures in the March action plan.

I would like to ask for your continued cooperation with the deliberations. Thank you.”