This paper draws upon a series of government reports on employment policy and cross-national expenditure data in order to clarify the features and recent changes in Japanese labor policy. In the postwar era, employment policy objectives in have consistently been to reach full employment and specifically to move from quantitative measures to qualitative improvements. A cross-national comparison of financial expenditures as a percentage of GDP reveals that the public works share of expenditures in every category of employment policy has been and continues to be overwhelmingly high in Japan. In France and Germany this ratio used to be high, however, a major policy shift in the 1980s offers a strong contrast. In order to ensure employment stability, demands were placed on Japanese firms to take responsibility for employment security and government policies reinforced this dependence. The flip side, however, was that firms were granted large right over personnel decisions such as transfers and overtime. However, in recent years, the environment surrounding firms has changed and labor policy as well has begun to move in the direction of boosting job creation and recruiting services, and towards policies to help develop skills in order to make "a smooth transition without unemployment" possible. Furthermore, in order for all kinds of people to gain access to a variety of jobs and utilize their skills, policies that promote equal opportunity and remedy discriminatory practices also have become more important.
