The short-time work system is the main way Japanese parents stay in work after childcare leave ends. Employers must provide it for employees with a child under three. The system must include a six-hour working day, and employers may offer other patterns alongside it. Where the nature of the job makes shorter hours genuinely difficult, an employer can exclude it by labour-management agreement, but must then offer an alternative such as flextime or, since April 2025, telework.
The 2024 amendments widened the support around it. From April 2025 employment insurance pays a reduced-hours childcare benefit of 10% of wages to employees working shorter hours for a child under two, which partly offsets the pay cut. The right to be excused from overtime was extended to parents of children up to primary school entry. From October 2025, for children aged three up to school entry, employers must choose at least two of five measures to offer: flexible start and finish times or flextime, telework for at least ten days a month, a workplace nursery or babysitting support, at least ten days a year of leave for childcare, or a shorter working day.
There is a parallel duty for caregivers. For each family member needing care, employers must offer at least one of four measures: shorter working hours, flextime, moving start and finish times earlier or later, or help with the cost of care services. The measure must be usable at least twice over a period of at least three years from first use.
What it means for a foreign employer
- Senior women leave when this is the only option. Short-time work can quietly end a management career if the role cannot be done in six hours. Flexible hours and remote work often keep senior people in role.
- Pay goes down; bonus rules need care. Employees on short hours are paid for the hours worked, but bonus and appraisal rules must not penalise them beyond that.
- Check you have chosen your two measures. The October 2025 requirement applies to all employers, and the work rules must say which options you offer.
- It is a hiring signal. Mid-career parents will ask whether short hours, flextime and remote work are real in practice, not just in the rules.
Sources
- Act on Childcare Leave, Caregiver Leave and Other Measures, Articles 16-8, 23 (including Article 23(3) for caregivers), and the October 2025 provisions on flexible working measures, as amended in 2024.
- Employment Insurance Act, reduced-hours childcare benefit (in force 1 April 2025).