The ‘Revised Childcare and Family Care Leave Act’ was promulgated last year and will partially and progressively come into force from 1 April 2025.

The ‘Revised Childcare and Family Care Leave Act’ requires employers to
Measures to realise flexible working in accordance with the age of the child
The revised Child Care and Family Care Leave Act will be implemented gradually from April 1, 2012.
The measures include: – strengthening the system of support for combining work and nursing care in order to prevent nursing care leaving.
The new law will make it mandatory to

Specifically, with regard to workers raising a primary school-aged child over three years old, employers will be obliged to take measures to realise flexible working arrangements based on an understanding of the needs of the workplace, and to allow workers to choose and make use of these measures. Employers are obliged to ‘inform workers individually and confirm their intentions’ with regard to the measures they have chosen.

Employers will be obliged to grasp ‘the state of taking childcare leave’ and ‘the state of setting working hours’ and set numerical targets, and will be obliged to set policies for work sharing and securing replacements when using the dual parental support system, efforts to improve the sense of conviction regarding positions after returning to work, management and evaluation of employees taking childcare leave or working short hours. It is desirable to include the following in the action plan.

In order to prevent care leavers from leaving their jobs, it has become compulsory: 1. to inform workers individually about the dual parental support system and the degree of support they can give to their family members when they request it; 2. to provide information and training on the dual parental support system as soon as possible; 3. to abolish the system whereby employees can be excluded from care leave, regardless of their length of service; and 4. to introduce a new system whereby employees are not required to take care of their own family members when they leave their jobs.

In the event of a breach of the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act, the employer is required to report to the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare and may be given advice, guidance or recommendations on the necessary measures to be taken.