TOKYO: Japan's labour minister said on Tuesday (Dec 2), the government has launched a nationwide investigation after a staff member of a public employment service centre in Tokyo posed as a job seeker, in an alleged attempt to inflate job placement targets, Kyodo News reported.
The employee at the Hello Work job centre in Tokyo's Sumida Ward applied to nine companies under false identities and succeeded in securing four job offers.
Each of Hello Work's 544 offices has its own job placement targets.
Health, Labour and Welfare Minister Kenichiro Ueno said at a press conference on Tuesday that the nationwide probe will check for similar misconduct at all Hello Work job centres.
He said there is a need for strict discipline and proper management of placement targets, and that the ministry will take firm action once the investigation is complete.
The employee had registered two false identities as job seekers and introduced the non-existent applicants to businesses that had posted job openings.
According to the ministry, the employee at the Hello Work Sumida centre is believed to have subsequently declined the four job offers.
The case came to light this fall when the employee used their real name during an interview, prompting the company to notice discrepancies with the application documents. The ministry has since apologised to all nine companies involved.
According to the ministry, job placements that applicants decline are excluded from official statistics, but if a job centre is unaware of the withdrawal, the numbers may remain inflated.
As of October, four fictitious placements linked to the employee were included in the statistics.
Job centres operating under the Tokyo Labour Bureau, such as Hello Work Sumida, receive guidance from the bureau when they fall below 95 per cent of their monthly targets. - Bernama-Kyodo
