AOTS Journal 2019 SPRING No.14 (ENGLISH)

14/18

JOURNAL12AOTS, with a consignment of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, has been organizing training for ofcials from foreign employer organizations and corporate personnel experts on such topics as Japanese labor-management practices and human resource management. As a part of the training this year, the above titled symposium was held by AOTS in Tokyo, November 2018.The rapid progress of digital technologies is expected to compensate for future labor shortages in Japan, while at the same time those technologies will change the structure of industry in what is being called the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0. This has become a hot topic of discussion in many countries including Japan particularly with regards to how such technologies will inuence our labor and employment practices. Germany compiled ‘Labour 4.0’ in its white paper as the country’s countermeasure against these changes after a robust discussion on the new challenges being thrown up by the digitization of employment and how the three parties of government, employees and employers can cope with it from the perspective of conventional systems of employment and labor.AOTS held the above-titled symposium by inviting four experts from Germany and Japan. In addition to brieng the participants on what German ‘Labour 4.0’ meant, the speakers dealt with such subjects as what Japan can learn from the German case and what should be the ideal state of Japanese employment and labor in the future. The symposium had some 100 participants and concluded successfully.[Part One] 1.Keynote Lecture: German ‘Work 4.0’ and Japanese ReactionDr. Martin PohlDr. Yota YamamotoCounsellor, Foreign Ministry of Labour and Social AffairsVise Senior Researcher (Labour Law)Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Tokyo Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT)2.Case Study: Reactions to Work 4.0 by CorporationsDr. Wolfgang GlaserMr. Yasuo Sando Head of Human Resource OfceExecutive Counsellor Chief ResearcherMitsubishi Fuso & Daimler Trucks AsiaNippon Steel & Sumikin Research Institute Corporation[Part Two] Panel DiscussionWe asked Dr. Kenji Takahashi, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Rissho University, to be moderator, and had the four speakers as members of the panel. Those members answered previously raised questions from the audience.(Questions from the oor)• Wish to know if there was a case of raising productivity by the use of IoT tech.• How do Germans train employees to cope with new and emerging technologies?• Do you see any change in roles by labor unions in the future?The panel members gave various views on these topics in spite of the limited time. Report of AOTS International Symposium‘Labour 4.0’ in Germany and the Future of Japanese LaborThis symposium was organized as part of a training scheme to deal with labor-management relations and human resource management practices in Japan for personnel of employer’s organizations as well as corporations from different countries. AOTS has been conducting this scheme at the behest of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. For details of this program, please visit the following page:https://www.aots.jp/en/project/eocp/index.htmlPanel discussion members on stage