Expansion of the scope of social insurance coverage obligation for part-time employees

At a glance

• Companies are required to enrol full-time employees and part-time employees who work at least 75% of the full-time employee’s working hours in social insurance.
• Part-time employees working less than 75% are only required to be covered under certain circumstances.
• From 1 October 2024, this part-time requirement will only apply to companies with over 50 employees. 

Companies are required to enrol full-time employees and part-time employees who work at least 75% of the full-time employee’s working hours in social insurance (ie health insurance and welfare pension).

Part-time employees who work less than 75% of the working hours of full-time employees (so-called ‘short-time workers’) are required to be covered by social insurance only if the following conditions  are met:

• the company has 101 or more employees;
• the prescribed weekly working hours are at least 20 hours;
• monthly salary is at least JPY88,000;
• their employment is expected to continue for more than two months; and
• they are not a student.

Effective from 1 October 2024, the requirement regarding company headcount above will change from ‘more than 100 employees’ to ‘more than 50 employees’.