Arya News - Fifty years have passed since such a mandatory rate was first set in 1976, and initiatives have now gone beyond merely meeting that figure to also exploring ways to maximise disabled people’s abilities and job satisfaction.
TOKYO – The statutory employment rate for people with disabilities was raised to 2.7% from July, up from 2.5%.
Fifty years have passed since such a mandatory rate was first set in 1976, and initiatives have now gone beyond merely meeting that figure to also exploring ways to maximize disabled people’s abilities and job satisfaction.
Over 700,000 employed
Miho Hayashi, 52, works at Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.’s headquarters in Tokyo, coordinating schedules within her department and handling administrative communications for employees who are expecting a child. Hayashi has a visual impairment and performs her duties using a computer connected to headphones.
“The expectations of the people around me motivate me to do a good job,” she said.
Operational coordination and the understanding of colleagues are necessary for people with disabilities to work.
Companies may prepare equipment and supplies suited to the specific nature of a disability. Hayashi, for example, uses software that reads documents aloud. Mitsui Chemicals places a high priority on having employees with disabilities work alongside their colleagues and employs 50 such people at its headquarters.
“It is a social responsibility of businesses to help disabled people be active at their workplace,” a human resources official at the company said.
The Law to Facilitate the Employment of Persons with Disabilities stipulates the mandatory proportion of disabled workers among a business’ employees. The rate has been raised in stages, and in July — the first revision in about two years — it increased from 2.5% to 2.7%. Companies that fail to meet this target face penalties, such as the collection of a “disability employment levy” and the public disclosure of their company names.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the number of disabled people working in companies exceeded 700,000 for the first time in 2025. However, as of June 2025, only 46% of companies met the mandatory rate of 2.5% stipulated at that time, and the overall employment rate remained at 2.41%.
Boosting job satisfaction
Improving job satisfaction is another task for the health ministry and the organizations concerned.
In a survey released in March by the Japan Organization for Employment of the Elderly, Persons with Disabilities and Job Seekers, 88.8% of companies said they either prioritized or somewhat prioritized meeting the mandatory employment rate. In contrast, only 53.4% aimed to make disabled people productive members of the workforce, while 33.5% aimed for them to contribute to core business operations.
Disabled people at Sony Group Corp’s subsidiary are assigned tasks that take into account their specific characteristics. For example, people with intellectual or mental disabilities are responsible for annotation, or the process of finely classifying and tagging images for AI training.
The company says the job draws on their ability to intently focus on a single task, and their talent is utilized in developing AI for its flagship cameras and pet robots.
“If we assign work that matches their aptitudes and personalities, it leads to a sense of fulfillment and personal growth for the individual,” the company’s spokesperson said.
Challenges for SMEs
Increasing the employment rate among small and medium-sized enterprises is a challenge as well. In companies with fewer than 100 employees, the employment rate for people with disabilities stands at only 1.94%, which is lower than the overall average.
This apparently stems from a lack of financial and human resources to make workplaces barrier-free and to assign staff to support disabled people.
“Companies must prioritize retaining disabled employees and provide them careful recruitment and workplace support,” Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. senior consultant Yoko Tanaka said. “The government should also provide support not only to meet numerical targets but also to improve the quality of employment.”