Employability

Definition

Employability, the ability to meet requirements to find a new job or to maintain a current job, is the overall combination of various elements, including skill, capability, cooperativeness, and proactiveness. In recent years, CSR has considered employees to be company stakeholders and fulfilling CSR entails enhancing the employability of employees.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's 2001 "Report of the Survey of Criteria for Employability' defines employability as the "ability to be employed based on the values in the labor market or practical applicable ability that the labor market evaluates as a present or able to be developed". The fundamental elements of employability are categorized into three areas: 1) specific skills or knowledge required to complete a job, 2) the individual's intellectual and behavioral characteristics in work performance, such as cooperativeness and proactiveness, and 3) individual potential from the individual's blend of motivation, character, uprightness, conviction, and values *1.

Employability therefore includes individual personality attributes in addition to specific knowledge and skills. The increasing diversity of worker view on work content and conditions and the trend for an increasing interchange of workers in recent years is changing the traditional view of long-term employment. The new environment calls for employees that are not just capable of fulfilling their current duties but also have the capacity to develop their skills as needed across various companies. As these conditions emerged, offering the opportunity to enhance an employee's employability developed into an element of CSR. In addition, fulfilling this condition raises employee satisfaction, which facilitates the hiring of better-skilled people, and ultimately raises overall employee competence. Companies are beginning to reassess their educational and training programs to provide various type of support for employees with the desire to improve and enhance their skills.