Firm-level labor demand for and macroeconomic increases in non-regular workers in Japan

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to account for the increase in non-regular workers, namely, part-time and dispatched workers, in the Japanese economy from the early 2000s. We use a firm-level panel dataset extracted from an administrative survey and distinguish between the short-run and long-run determinants of non-regular labor demand. Using the estimated parameters of the labor demand function, we decompose the rate of increase in the macroeconomic non-regular worker ratio into determinant factor contributions. Our major results can be summarized as follows. First, the firm-level determinants of the demand for part-time and dispatched workers significantly differ. Second, our results suggest that the creation of part-time jobs stimulated by the increased female labor supply plays an essential role in non-regular worker growth relative to direct demand-side factors. On the contrary, increases in both the elderly and the female labor supply have reduced demand for dispatched workers. Third, the microeconomic demand conditions for non-regular labor are widely dispersed among firms. Neither the micro demand factors examined in this study nor industrial differences can explain this heterogeneity.