Like many industrialised nations, the current employment trend in Japan centres on diversification of the labour market with an increased use of temporary labour. Among a wide range of non-regular labour arrangements, haken are a newly legalised category of non-regular workers who are typically employed by the employment agency while working at the facilities of and being under the authority of the client firm. They have recently expanded exponentially under the state s deregulation policy and assumed considerable significance in political debate, especially with regard to the...