The government's draft guideline for narrowing the steep gap in wages and other conditions between regular full-time employees and workers on irregular contracts is a first step in the right direction. It still needs to be fleshed out — in the process of turning the guideline into legislative action as early as next year — to serve as an effective deterrent against unfair treatment of workers on the basis of their employment status.

The guideline, presented last week to the government's council on "work-style reforms," is the product of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's call for introduction of the "equal pay for equal work" principle to address the disparity between regular and irregular workers — a problem of growing importance as people on irregular contracts such as part-timers, those on term contracts and temporary dispatch staff have come to account for 40 percent of employed workers.

The expanding ranks of the generally low paid workers on irregular (and often unstable) contracts have been cited as a factor behind various socio-economic woes, including sluggish consumer spending, whose sustained recovery is seen as crucial to the economy's revival. Government data show that workers on part-time contracts earn an average of about 60 percent of the hourly wage of regular full-time corporate employees — a gap that is likely steeper if bonuses and other benefits are counted. The Abe administration has set a goal of narrowing the earning gap between irregular workers and their regular full-time counterparts to the tune of 80 percent, as is more common in advanced European economies.