Make employers' insurance costs depend on hours worked, not headcount, so that longer hours cost more per hour
In short
- Employers stop paying a fixed cost for each person they employ.
- Insurance contributions are set in proportion to the hours people actually work.
- The rate rises step by step for every hour worked beyond a set limit.
- The extra money goes to lower the burden on companies that hire more people and shorten hours.
If this comes true
At three o'clock on a Friday afternoon, a father who works at a town print shop finishes his early shift and goes to pick up his child from daycare, while a young craftsperson, newly hired, runs the press during the hours he has freed up.
Perhaps
In workplaces where timekeeping has become strict, more people might take work due before a deadline home and do it where no record is kept.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
This proposal changes how employers' social insurance contributions, and similar per-person costs, are set. In many societies today, part of the insurance carries a fixed amount per person, or the contribution has a cap, so an employer's burden does not grow no matter how long it makes a highly paid person work. This system is reformed so that the employer's burden is set in proportion to the hours actually worked. The fixed amount per person and the cap on contributions tied to long hours are both abolished. On top of that, the contribution rate rises step by step for hours beyond the weekly limit, so each additional hour costs more the longer people are made to work. The extra revenue from the increase goes toward lowering the contributions of companies that hire new people and shorten each person's hours, so that the total burden on employers as a whole does not grow much. To prevent employers from escaping the system, treating people who work under an employer's direction as independent contractors is not allowed, and the judgment is based on how the work is actually done. Keeping records of hours worked becomes the employer's duty, and when unrecorded overtime is found, contributions are collected retroactively at the highest rate. Small workplaces and jobs whose busyness changes greatly with the season get an exception that lets them calculate on a yearly average.
BenefitsMake sharing time the cheaper choice
This proposal builds shorter working hours into the employer's calculation of gain and loss, instead of relying on the employer's goodwill. When the fixed cost per person disappears and longer hours bring higher contributions, it becomes cheaper to split work among several people than to pile it on one. Then people who had been working long hours get back time for family, community, learning again and rest, and people who could only work short hours or were looking for work find new openings. Because the extra contributions go toward easing the burden on companies that hired more people, it does not simply take more from companies; it rewards the ones that shared time. Also, people who can only work short hours because of child care or caring for family are no longer a costly choice for employers, so they are less likely to be at a disadvantage in hiring. When recording hours becomes the employer's duty, long hours that left no trace are also more likely to come into the open. It is a move from the money side to lower, little by little and across the whole of society, the weight that work takes up in life.
DrawbacksWorkplaces that cannot add staff suffer, and hidden overtime grows
Not every job can be divided up by adding people. For skilled technicians, doctors, researchers and others whose replacements cannot be found quickly, there are many situations where there is no choice but to have them work long hours, and for these jobs this system is simply a rise in costs. That cost may be added to the prices of goods and services, or it may come back to workers as lower pay. For small workplaces struggling with a shortage of hands, and for small factories that survive by meeting sudden orders, it can become a question of whether they can keep running at all. Also, the more that contributions are decided by time, the stronger the reason for employers to record fewer hours than were worked. Taking work home and working outside the record may increase, and the risk is that working hours become even harder to see. For people who have supported their households with overtime pay, fewer working hours also means less income. There will probably also be workplaces where even people who want to work more and earn more are in effect required to work shorter hours.
Learn the background
Thanks to machines and information technology, the time needed to do the same work has fallen a great deal. Even so, in many societies working hours have not become as short as expected, and quite a few people lose time for family, hobbies and rest to long hours of work. Meanwhile, there are people who cannot find work, and people who want to work more but can only get short hours. Work is gathered in the hands of some people, and time is handed out unevenly. One reason hours have not come down is that, for employers, it is cheaper to have the people they already have work longer than to hire someone new. On top of the trouble of hiring and training, there are fixed per-person costs such as insurance contributions, so making one person work double pays better than having two people work half each. Overtime premiums often fail to close this gap. Workers, too, find it hard to ask for shorter hours when overtime pay is what supports their living. Appeals and targets alone will not change this flow of money.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
It helps pay for the server and the AI's planting
This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-23a) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes