The Fair Trade Commission on Tuesday conducted on-site inspections of Persol Tempstaff, Recruit Staffing and three other companies for allegedly forming an illegal cartel to raise staffing service fees, sources have said.
According to informed sources, the inspections were the first to have been conducted on-site by the antimonopoly watchdog on companies in Japan¡¯s temporary staffing industry.
The five firms likely aimed to secure their own profits, with the companies suspected of agreeing to raise such fees around November 2022, the sources said.
Staffing service fees are paid by companies that accept workers sent by the staffing agencies.
According to the website of the Japan Staffing Services Association and other sources, about 70% of such fees are salaries paid to dispatched workers, while the remaining 30% represent the staffing agencies¡¯ share, which covers various costs such as social insurance premiums, recruitment advertisement expenses and costs for temporary workers¡¯ paid leave, with a profit margin coming to 1.2%.
The five firms are suspected of having raised such fees in hopes of boosting their own profits, rather than using the money to improve working conditions for the workers they dispatched.
According to labor ministry data, the number of dispatched workers totaled about 2.2 million in fiscal 2024, a 3.9% increase from the previous year, while the industry¡¯s annual sales grew 9.4% to ?9.9 trillion. The average fee for an eight-hour dispatch rose 3.6% to ?26,257.
¡°We will fully cooperate with the JFTC¡¯s investigation,¡± an official of Persol Tempstaff said.
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