Q146 The employment structure has undergone change recently, hasn't it?

A146 Yes.Companies are controlling the number of full-time, permanent employees they hire in order to control costs, and are increasing the number non-regular employees, including part-time staff and contracted workers. Consequently, the ratio of fulltime, regular employees to all employees decreased from 84.7% in 1984 to 66.8% in the first quarter of 2006. In contrast and by the same comparison, the ratio of part-time employees increased from 11.2% to 22.4%, while the ratio for temporary workers from agencies and contract workers increased from 4.2% to 1 0.8%. It was formerly said that Japan was a nation of 100 million middle-class people but, with the increase in the number of non-regular employees, the size of the low-income layer of society has increased, as has the gap with high-income earners. The change to a society with significant inequality is creating problems in Japan.