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TOKYO: (Bernama-Kyodo) Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp will require its employees to take at least one month's paternity leave in principle from October to encourage participation in childcare and improve the working environment, Kyodo News Agency reported.
As part of the measures to be adopted by fiscal year 2028, the major bank will pay a bonus of 50,000 yen (US$335) to employees on parental leave and their colleagues if the business continues to operate stably during their absence.
Taking into consideration that workers will be able to secure adequate time for preparation, "We will promote initiatives to strengthen team resilience, seeing absences arising from childcare as an opportunity," the company said in a press release on Sept 19.
The new measures will be adopted after the bank achieved a 100 per cent acquisition rate for paternity leave in the 2023 fiscal year. However, the average length of leave was just 12 days, falling far short of the 30-day target.
Employees with children under two years old are subject to the paternity leave measure.
"Our goal is to eliminate gender stereotypes and establish a culture in which men taking paternity leave and participating in childcare are seen as the norm," the bank said.
The move comes as a growing number of Japanese companies are introducing measures to pay allowances to colleagues of workers on parental leave, intended to encourage staff to take time off and alleviate feelings of unfairness among those facing increased workloads.
According to a government survey, a record 40.5 per cent of fathers with infants took paternity leave in 2024 but the percentage remained sharply lower than 86.6 per cent of mothers who took maternity leave. - Bernama-Kyodo
