Back in the days when I was a corporate drone in Tokyo, I had a wonderful secretary who had the good fortune to get pregnant. Bad news for me, though, since I had to endure a series of temps, some good, some bad, and one who marinated herself in enough perfume to make everyone ill. But what I found most annoying was that each time the HR department hired a new temp, they never gave me a chance to interview her first — I would show up at work one day and there she would be. Some years later, I finally understand why I was not able to meet the temps first: It would have been against the law.

The use of temporary (or "irregular") workers is subject to a Byzantine set of statutes, regulations and official guidance that can be a minefield for just about anyone trying to do business or work in Japan, whether they be consultants, multinational corporations or English teachers. Japan is famous for its system of "lifetime employment," though in addition to being a misnomer (because of relatively low mandatory retirement ages at most institutions), it is a status many workers do not actually enjoy. Nonetheless, the rules of employment law in Japan have developed largely around this system, in which workers are hired right after they graduate from high school or college and remain with the same company for decades. Essentially, employees are a long-term fixed business cost, and efforts by companies to expand their work force without expanding fixed costs have been the subject of a game of regulatory cat and mouse between employers and labor bureaucrats for over two decades.

Under the lifetime employment system, workers are not hired to perform a particular set of tasks or to fill a specific position, but rather to be a part of the corporate culture for a significant portion of their lives. As a result, the employment relationship is not defined in terms of workers performing specific tasks for a specific amount of pay over a set period of time. Rather, it exists as a changing relationship spanning decades that may involve different roles, departments and geographical locations. In this relationship the only real constant is that the employer tells the employee what to do and the employee follows these instructions. Who tells workers what to do, therefore, is a critical starting point for a great deal of Japanese employment law and regulation.