The internal affairs ministry has launched its first large-scale survey on how many civil servants are taking leave due to mental health issues and what is being done to prevent such problems, covering all the local governments of 47 prefectures and 1,741 municipalities.
A growing number of employees at local governments are taking such leave. After analyzing the survey results, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry hopes to compile effective measures by the end of this fiscal year.
The survey targets civil servants -- with the exception of teachers, police officers and firefighters -- and asks local governments to indicate the number of employees who took a leave of absence due to mental health problems for one week or more in fiscal 2020. Questions will be asked about each employee's gender, age, work department, and whether they had sought help before taking the leave.
Each local government will also be asked about their preventive measures and efforts to help people return to work. Specifically, they will be asked whether they have a department in charge of mental health, what measures they are taking for younger employees, the training being implemented for managers, and what measures they are taking to prevent a recurrence after people return to work.
The workload of local government employees has been increasing due to COVID-19 and disaster response efforts, and there have also been more unreasonable demands from residents in recent years.
With the flood of information available via the internet and other media, staff also need to have more specialized knowledge, and the burden on them is said to be increasing.
In the past, an organization affiliated with the ministry conducted an annual sampling survey of some local governments.
According to the results for fiscal 2019, the number of employees who took a leave of absence for one month or more due to mental health issues was 1,643 per 100,000, or 1.64% of the total. This was five times the level in the fiscal 1999 survey, which was 327, or 0.32% of the total.
The ministry decided it was urgent to protect the mental health of all local government employees, and started the comprehensive survey this month. Based on the results, it plans to have experts discuss the issue and reflect the results in the planning of measures tailored to the specific work environment and duties of employees.
According to a report by the ministry, there were about 2.76 million municipal and prefectural employees, including teachers, police officers, and firefighters, in fiscal 2020. This is a decrease of about 520,000 from the peak of about 3.28 million in fiscal 1994.
In contrast, according to the National Personnel Authority, 4,186 or 1.51% of all central government employees took a leave of absence for one month or more due to mental health problems in fiscal 2019. This was the highest number, and percentage, in the past 10 years.
Prof. Hajime Ota of Doshisha University, an expert on the civil service system, said: "The variety of work local governments have to do is not decreasing, and they are lagging behind the private sector when it comes to using IT and other means to work more efficiently. The workplace environment is becoming more demanding. It's necessary to closely analyze what kind of problems are characteristic of each age group and position, and apply this information to mental health measures."
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