Society

More irregularities found in work-hour data

Feb 27 (NHK) - Japan's labor ministry says additional irregularities have been found in the employee work-hour data used for Diet debate on working system reform.

Labor minister Katsunobu Kato disclosed the finding at a Lower House committee meeting on Monday. The committee is now discussing working system reform, which includes expanding a discretionary system that sets fixed wages regardless of hours put in.

Ministry officials had explained that they confirmed 117 suspected errors in survey data on the number of work hours put in by employees under both the discretionary system and those in general.

Kato said that after closely looking into the ministry data, 233 more cases of irregularities were found.

The cases mention weekly and monthly overtime records of employees in general, while showing that their daily overtime was zero.

Kato called the data irrational, saying it is impossible to mention weekly and monthly overtime without daily records.

The minister also referred to a survey on work hours of officials involved in company management under a discretionary work system. He said there were 42 cases in which less than 2 daily work hours were performed.

He indicated that his ministry would further investigate the cases and report to the Diet, saying the cases give a feeling of incongruity.

Source: ANNnewsCH

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