Japan govt to reskill 1 million people to help boost incomes
The Japanese government will help some 1 million people, including non-regular workers, develop skills and find new jobs as part of measures to invest more in human resources. This is based on a draft plan aimed at realising a new form of capitalism advocated by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The draft also states that the government will draw up a plan to double asset income by the end of this year at the earliest, to help direct individual financial assets away from savings and toward investment.
The draft will be presented on Tuesday to a meeting of the council to realise Kishida’s new form of capitalism policy. The government aims to finetune the draft with the ruling parties and have it approved by the Cabinet in early June.
The draft lays out policies to invest heavily in four areas: human resources, science and technology, start-ups, and decarbonisation and digitisation. It also emphasises that the government will raise household income via wage hikes and strive to shift personal financial assets from savings to investment across generations.
According to the draft, “it is necessary to create a virtuous cycle in which households receive the benefits of a sustainable increase in corporate values” by shifting deposits or savings to investment by promoting reform of the Nippon Individual Savings Account small-lot investment system, known as NISA, among other methods.
A new financial aid system for students will also be introduced, according to the draft. Under the envisaged system, the government will cover tuition at universities and other institutions, and students will repay the loans when their post-graduation annual earnings reach a certain threshold.
To promote labour mobility in growth fields, the government will offer workers re-learning opportunities and help with finding new jobs based on a package of measures worth 400 billion yen over three years.
To nurture start-ups, the draft says the government will create a new credit guarantee system that will, for example, eliminate the need for personal guarantees if a start-up has a credit guarantee in place when it first launches.
The Japan News
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