## Summary

From the middle of 2012, the Japanese economy weakened due to the global slowdown following the European sovereign debt crisis. However, thanks to such factors as the stock prices rising in hope of economic policy in 2013, the confidence of households and companies have been improving and the economy had shown a sign of recovery which was driven by domestic demands. It is on the track to a slow recovery. The improvement in production and corporate profits encouraged the steady recovery of employment situation. The number of employees has increased considerably by about 500,000 from the previous year. The unemployment rate continued to decline in a steady manner and fell to 3.6% in March 2014, showing a recovery to the level before the financial crisis. The ratio of active job openings to active job applicants surpassed 1 in six years and a month in November 2013 and marked 1.07 in March 2014. Under these situations, efforts to contribute to the improvement of corporate profits back to household incomes and further expand consumption are required to maintain the virtuous economic cycle.

In the "Analysis of the Labour Economy 2014," the situation of labour economy in 2013 was analyzed and the development of an environment that enables wage increase was discussed. Moreover, based on the awareness of the idea that "human resources are the most important world-class resource of Japan," it analyzed human resources management in companies and career development of workers under the subject of "for the maximum capability of human resources."

Chapter 1, entitled "trends and features of the labour economy," outlined the process of economic recovery mainly in employment in fiscal 2013 and analyzed issues for the establishment of a virtuous economic cycle that promotes a steady economic recovery.

As the corporate production (activity) level increases in early 2013, hours of overtime work as well as the number of workers in the non-manufacturing industry increased significantly. At the same time, corporate profits improved and both summer and year-end bonuses increased for the first time in a few years. This bolstered consumer spending and activities toward a virtuous economic cycle. Commodity prices have risen as the yen’s exchange rate weakened and wages are also showing an increasing trend. As for wages, corporate profits and the employment situation showed a sign of improvement thanks to economic recovery, and the government, labour and management shared a common perception of increasing wages according to the expansion of corporate profits in the "meeting among government, labour and management towards a virtuous economic cycle." As a result of negotiation among the three parties based on this, many companies maintained the amount corresponding to periodic wage increase and agreed to raise wages in the shunto (annual spring wage offensive) of 2014. We will look to these movements and further wage increase by improving labour quality through the accumulation of human capital and labour productivity.

In the future, for steady economic recovery, it is important to cement the virtuous economic cycle: increase in corporate profits immediately result in wage increase and the expansion of employment, which promotes a further increase of corporate profits through the expansion of consumption and investment.

Chapter 2, entitled "trend and issues of human resources management in company," described analysis on human resources management - how companies manage and develop human resources and increase their competitiveness as the environment surrounding them change.

In conjunction with changes in the competition environment caused by the development of technical revolution including globalization and IT and increase in the uncertainty of management, companies are managing business by combining diverse human resource beyond the two employment forms (regular workers and non-regular workers) depending on the environment they are in and issues they confront.

Businesses in Japan changed management forms in conjunction with changes in the outside environment, such as the change of wage determinant factors and flattening of wage profile. Many companies in Japan focus on the internal labour market, and a high percentage of them work on employment management to increase labour productivity and work motivation compared to companies that focus on the external labour market.

Various people are able to choose ways to work with confidence thanks to the popularity of diversified regular employment. This is considered to contribute to securing human resources and improving productivity in businesses.