NPFC STAFF REGULATIONS – PROPOSAL REGARDING SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS

This Working Paper provides an update on Staff Regulation 8.1 (Social Security) and consideration of its implementation through internal policy and changes to the wording of the regulation itself. In 2024, one recommendation received from the consultant Olivia and Associates was to consider having all staff fully adopting the Japanese social security scheme. Further analysis of this with a Japanese labor attorney (sharoushi) has noted that many elements are not available to non-residents (e.g., employment insurance) or challenging to navigate on removal (e.g., registered Japanese pension due to our tax-free status). The latter situation is the same found for SPRFMO where a similarly structured pension scheme is in place for international staff. As such the focus is on identifying options to ensure staff are adequately insured and aligning the staff regulations. The goal is to ensure access to quality health care with an added benefit of reduced costs if current staff transition to the Japanese system. The current four international staff (including dependents) pay approximately ¥6 million per year for medical insurance and this would be reduced to about ¥0.5 million if all staff and dependents joined the national health. An additional cost for workers accident insurance is also planned (and budgeted for) of approximately ¥0.3 million.