Key Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Changes for October 2026

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare describes changes to related systems taking effect in October 2026 that particularly affect people in Japan, covering employment and labor, welfare, and pensions.

In employment and labor, the changes include introducing mandatory employer measures against harassment, adding material on equal pay for equal work and disclosures of working conditions, and revising prefectural minimum wages.

In pensions, the measures include adjusting premium burdens as employees’ insurance coverage expands and abolishing the wage requirement, allowing voluntary enrollment for workers covered by a reduction exception, and exempting National Pension premiums during childcare.

The premium adjustment system is intended to ease the reduction in take-home pay when short-time workers join employees’ insurance at relatively small workplaces newly covered by the system.

Periods exempted under the childcare-period program are treated as periods in which premiums were paid and are reflected in future pension benefits.

All employers will be required to take necessary employment management measures to prevent customer harassment and sexual harassment of job applicants and others.

The equal pay for equal work guidelines and related materials will add information on bonuses, retirement allowances, safe-driving allowances, family allowances, housing allowances, welfare facilities, sick leave, summer and winter leave, and awards. At hiring and dispatch, employers must disclose that workers may request an explanation of the nature and reasons for differences in treatment. Those covered are short-time and fixed-term workers and their employers, dispatched workers, dispatching agencies, and host employers.

Regional minimum wages will be revised in stages by prefecture from October 1, increasing by 54 to 65 yen per hour in every prefecture. All workers and employers are covered.

As a temporary, special measure introduced from fiscal 2023 onward, the livelihood assistance standards will provide a special addition of 1,500 yen per household member per month for one year from October 2026, raising it by 1,000 yen to 2,500 yen per month. Households whose post-increase amount remains below the previous standard will continue to receive the previous amount. The measure covers public assistance recipients.

A system will be established to reduce workers’ own premium burden for short-time workers and relatively small workplaces newly covered by expanded employees’ insurance under the 2025 pension system reform.

In areas where the minimum wage is at least 1,016 yen, working 20 hours per week meets the employees’ insurance wage requirement of 88,000 yen per month, or about 1,060,000 yen per year. Since the minimum wage is at least 1,016 yen nationwide, the wage requirement will be abolished.

Short-time workers eligible for an authorization to pay a reduced wage under the Minimum Wage Act will not be insured under employees’ insurance if their wages are below 88,000 yen per month. They may voluntarily enroll at their own request, without the employer’s consent.

Among Category I National Pension insured persons, a biological or adoptive parent aged 20 or older and under 60 who lives at the same address as a child under one year old will be exempt from National Pension premiums during the period of raising that child.