Present situation and issues of municipal employment strategy

The environment surrounding regional employment measures has been changing rapidly during the past several years. For instance, more and more local governments have replaced the central government as the policy maker. It is because it has become difficult to support employment in regional communities by expanding public works, as financial situation has deteriorated due to prolonged recession. As for laws and regulations, the Comprehensive Decentralization Act (2000) has clearly defined roles between the central government and local governments and set forth a policy to transfer authority to municipalities. Municipalities have become the principal player in regional employment measures, and more and more policies take into consideration the situation of each region. Furthermore, it is expected that employment policies will be implemented by municipalities based on the Revised Employment Measures Act (2000) and the amendment of Employment Security Act (2003). It is expected that employment issues would have high priority among all policies and require an urgent measure at municipalities where the unemployment rate is high. The reasons for unemployment are likely to be different by municipality depending on the social and economic background, and measures should be adopted taking these reasons into consideration. If some municipalities take appropriate measures for employment and some, facing the same situation, do not, what factors separate them? It is expected that municipalities will take more initiative in employment policies. But what are really the issues? It is the objective of the present study to confirm how municipalities, facing very different employment situation, are coping with employment issues in this period of transition. Existing studies on regional employment focus on qualitative research,