Aiming to promote the protection of freelancers, who don't belong to organizations such as companies, a subcommittee of the Labor Policy Council, an advisory body to the labor minister, reached a broad agreement on Tuesday to allow actors, animators, judo therapists and other freelancers to join a workers' compensation insurance system.
Such freelancers will be added to the "special enrollment system," to which sole proprietors and others are subject, and the system will be revised as early as next fiscal year.
Workers' compensation insurance is a system in which companies pay premiums and cover medical treatment and hospitalization expenses if their workers are injured at work or on the way to work.
In addition to company employees, the "special enrollment system" allows small and medium-sized business owners as well as private taxi drivers, "lone masters" in the construction industry and other workers who run businesses privately to pay their own insurance premiums to join the system.
Advances in digitization and diversification of ways of working have been pushing up the number of freelancers in recent years, with an estimated 4.62 million people working as freelancers, according to a survey conducted by the government in February and March.
On the other hand, freelancers often fill orders for work and tend to be in a weak bargaining position. Also, they are not covered by public protection such as unemployment benefits, unlike company employees.
Amid such situations, the expansion of a special enrollment system has been discussed as one possible protection measure.
Dancers, stage directors and others in the entertainment industry; animation production workers, including directors; and judo therapists were also among those suggested for workers' compensation coverage at the meeting on Tuesday, and they were mostly approved.
Workers in these industries are notably susceptible to fractures, tendonitis and low back pain at work, and there was strong demand from industry associations to allow them to join the insurance system.
About 1.9 million people were enrolled in the special enrollment system at the end of fiscal year 2018, and the expansion of coverage is expected to add at least about 15,000 people, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
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