What is referral hiring in Japan?Referral bonus rules, and how it differs from connection hiring
Referral hiring means employees introduce people they know, and the company selects them on the same criteria as any other applicant. 21.4% of people hired in Japan in 2025 came through personal connections (Survey on Employment Trends). The law requires the referral bonus to be paid as wages.
- Same selection for everyone
- 21.4% of hires via connections
- Bonus paid as wages
By Emmanuel Gendre
Last updated
Key takeaways
Five points on how referral hiring works and the rules that apply
- Referral hiring means meeting candidates through employees' introductions and selecting them on the same criteria as other applicants. In connection hiring, the connection to the company itself becomes a condition of hiring, so the selection criteria differ.
- 21.4% of people hired in 2025 joined through acquaintances, friends or other personal connections. At companies with 5 to 29 employees, the share was 37.1%.
- Bonuses for referring employees are written into company rules and paid as wages. Article 40 of the Employment Security Act bans rewards other than wages for employees engaged in recruitment, and violations carry up to 6 months' imprisonment or a fine of up to ¥300,000.
- The typical bonus is around ¥100,000. 40.9% of companies with a referral program pay no bonus, and among those that do, "¥10,000 to under ¥100,000" is the most common answer.
- Research shows referred hires are less likely to leave, but referrals tend to bring in similar people, so use them alongside other hiring channels.
Basics
What is referral hiring? Candidates introduced by employees, selected like everyone else
Referral hiring is a hiring method in which employees recommend friends and acquaintances for the company's open roles, and the company selects them on the same criteria as any other applicant. It is also called employee referral hiring, and the rules behind it are an employee referral program.
Japanese companies use the English loanword "referral" for this practice. In Japanese, as in English, it can mean a recommendation or the person recommended (Kenkyusha New English-Japanese Dictionary). In hiring, it means an introduction by an employee.
In law, referral hiring is "recruitment of workers" carried out by the company. Article 4 of the Employment Security Act defines recruitment of workers as a prospective employer encouraging people to become its employees, either itself or through someone it entrusts, and separates it from "job placement", which is arranging an employment relationship between a job seeker and an employer. An employee encouraging an acquaintance to apply on the company's instructions is "direct recruitment" under the recruitment and job offer operations manual of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), and direct recruitment "can in principle be carried out freely". That is why referrals by your own employees need no job placement license.
From referral to hire, the process usually runs in this order. The employee's role ends at telling the candidate what the company is really like and connecting them to HR; HR handles selection and the hiring decision.
| Stage | Who | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Reach out | Employee | Tells an acquaintance or friend who might fit an open role what the company and the job are really like |
| Refer to HR | Employee | With the person's consent, passes their details to HR through the set form |
| Casual meeting | HR | Sets up a casual meeting or a workplace visit |
| Selection | HR and interviewers | Takes the person's application and assesses them on the same criteria as other applicants |
| Share the result | HR | Tells the candidate the result, and tells the referring employee the result with thanks |
| Pay the bonus | Company | Pays the referring employee once the hire meets the conditions in the rules |
What is a referral program?
A referral program, or employee referral program, is the set of rules a company sets in advance to run referral hiring on an ongoing basis. It covers who can refer, which roles are open to referrals, how much the bonus is, when and on what conditions it is paid, and how referred people are selected. Fujitsu's program, for example, lets regular and contract employees refer, and states that "the referring employee is not involved in the selection process" and that "people already in the selection process are not eligible" (Fujitsu referral hiring program). The items to include are listed in the table under How to start.
Comparison
Referral hiring vs connection hiring: is the connection a way in, or a condition of hiring?
The difference is the selection criteria. In referral hiring, the introduction is only a way in, and the decision uses the same criteria as for other applicants. In connection hiring, the person's connection to the company is itself a condition of being hired.
The Japanese term for connection hiring is built on a word meaning "ties through blood or marriage" or "a special relationship between people" (Digital Daijisen dictionary). Connection hiring makes some connection between the job seeker and the company a condition of hiring, and no law specifically regulates it (Jinjibu HR glossary).
MHLW's basic principle, however, is that hiring decisions are made "on criteria based on the applicant's aptitude and ability" (Basics of fair recruitment screening). The occupation of family members is also listed among "matters the applicant is not responsible for" (MHLW fair recruitment screening site). If the result changes depending on who made the referral, it is no longer referral hiring but connection hiring, and it departs from this principle.
| Item | Referral hiring | Connection hiring | Recruitment agency |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you meet candidates | Employees' acquaintances and friends | Relatives or contacts of executives, employees or business partners | A licensed placement agency introduces candidates |
| Selection | Same as other applicants | Sometimes shortened or skipped | The company's usual selection |
| What decides the hire | Aptitude and ability for the job | The connection to the company can be a condition | Aptitude and ability for the job |
| Payments | The company pays the referring employee a bonus (as wages) | Usually none | The company pays the agency a fee (about ¥1.03 million on average per permanent placement) |
| Legal status | Recruitment of workers (direct recruitment) | No specific regulation | Job placement (needs a license from the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare) |
The fee is the average per permanent placement across all occupations, from MHLW's preliminary results of the FY2024 job placement business reports. The legal status follows Articles 4 and 30 of the Employment Security Act.
One of the conditions of a referral campaign should be disclosing whether the person referred is a relative. Recommending a brother or a cousin is not necessarily a bad thing, and the people referred are in general friends of employees, so the referrer is by definition biased. What matters is that on the hiring side (the recruiter, HR and the hiring managers), that bias is mitigated with an objective hiring process and interview practices. With relatives as with other referrals, no candidate should pass the hiring bar more easily because of how they were introduced. If you can maintain strict and unbiased hiring practices, referring family shouldn't be an issue.
In official statistics, hires through acquaintances and friends count as "connections"
Japan's national statistics do not separate referral hiring from connection hiring. MHLW's survey on job changers counts the route into a job as "connections (acquaintances, friends, etc.)" (Overview of the 2025 Survey on Job Changers). The "connections" figures in the next section include employee referrals, family ties and introductions through a previous employer.
Statistics
People hired through acquaintances, friends and other connections: 21.4% of hires in 2025
Of the 7,526,800 people who joined companies in 2025, 1,609,200 (21.4%) came through connections. That is the second-largest route after job ads (32.3%), and nearly three times the share through private placement agencies (7.7%) (MHLW 2025 Survey on Employment Trends).
How the 7,526,800 people hired in 2025 found their job
MHLW, 2025 Survey on Employment Trends
- Job ads
- 32.3%
- 2,428,200 people
- Connections
- 21.4%
- 1,609,200 people
- Hello Work
- 15.3%
- 1,151,100 people
- Private placement agencies
- 7.7%
- 581,000 people
Hello Work is Japan's public employment service; the figure includes its online service. Other routes: schools 6.2%, secondments and returns from secondment 2.8%, other 14.4%. Connections include 330,600 people who came through a previous employer. Shares are our calculation from the published headcounts.
Share of hires through connections, by company size (2025)
MHLW, 2025 Survey on Employment Trends
- Connections
- Other routes
1,000+ employees2,716,900 hires
300 to 999 employees1,321,300 hires
100 to 299 employees1,125,000 hires
30 to 99 employees1,113,100 hires
5 to 29 employees969,500 hires
In the same table, private placement agencies account for 8.8% of hires at companies with 1,000+ employees and 2.6% at companies with 5 to 29. Shares are our calculation from the published headcounts.
The smaller the company, the more it hires through the connections of its employees and owners. Among people who joined after changing jobs (5,061,800), connections accounted for 24.0% and private placement agencies for 9.3%.
Many companies now run it as a formal program. In a Tokyo Shoko Research survey (June 2026, 6,475 companies), 49.2% of companies used referral hiring: 60.4% of large companies and 48.3% of SMEs. The figure includes companies that also rehire former employees (alumni hiring) (Tokyo Shoko Research). A survey by the recruiting firm TalentX found 70.5% of companies running referral hiring, but its 2,073 respondents were mostly companies that had contacted TalentX (TalentX). In Mynavi's survey, 27.9% of recruiters who hired mid-career staff in 2025 used referral hiring (Mid-Career Hiring Survey 2026).
As a general range, a healthy referral share can be anywhere between 5% and 40% of hires. However, what is best for your company specifically will vary greatly depending on your employees, the size of your organization and how niche the roles you're hiring for are. The ideal share also depends on the quality of the referrals you get and how much they contribute to the company once they join, and it should be weighed against the cultural impact.
For example, I've seen the referral share reach 42% when I was hiring for a multinational organization. From a talent perspective, it was amazing: we were constantly receiving highly qualified candidates from the industry who brought real value. One issue, though, was that referred profiles tended to be very similar to current employees, which hurt the diversity of skill sets and of thinking.
Referral hiring for new graduates
Referral hiring also works for new graduates, with incoming hires or young employees introducing juniors and friends. The share is small, though: of the 1,275,800 new graduates hired in 2025, 12.4% came through connections, below schools (30.2%) and job ads (29.3%) (2025 Survey on Employment Trends, our calculation). The bonus and selection rules are the same as for mid-career hiring.
Benefits
Benefits of referral hiring: lower turnover and lower hiring costs
Two benefits can be checked against data: referred hires are less likely to leave, and each hire costs less. The other benefits follow from how referrals work, but are not yet backed by numbers.
On retention, in the Tokyo Shoko Research survey, referral hiring was the hiring method most often named as giving high employee retention, by 18.5% of companies, ahead of mid-career hiring through Hello Work (12.1%), new graduate hiring (10.4%) and recruitment agencies (5.4%). Among SMEs, referral hiring ranked first at 19.0%; among large companies, new graduate hiring ranked first at 26.5%. These are the shares of companies choosing each route, not retention rates, and 40.4% answered "no major difference" (Tokyo Shoko Research).
Research abroad points the same way. Data from nine large US companies showed referred hires were much less likely to quit, about as productive as other hires on most measures, and more profitable per worker. The profit gap came from lower turnover and lower hiring costs (Burks et al., Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2015). A study of another US company found referred candidates were more likely to be hired and stayed longer, while their starting pay advantage faded over time (Brown et al., Journal of Labor Economics, 2016).
| Benefit | Why | Figures (source) |
|---|---|---|
| Lower turnover | They join after hearing from the referrer what the workplace is really like, so there are fewer surprises after joining | 18.5% of companies named it the hiring method with the best retention, first among SMEs at 19.0% (Tokyo Shoko Research). Referred hires quit less (Burks et al. 2015) |
| Lower hiring cost | No job ad or agency fees; the cost is mainly the referral bonus and the time spent meeting candidates | Median bonus ¥100,000 (TalentX). Agency fees average about ¥1.03 million per permanent placement (MHLW); annual mid-career hiring costs average ¥6.099 million per company, of which ¥3.755 million goes to agencies (Mynavi) |
| Offers get accepted more often | They already know the company through the referrer, so they are readier to say yes | Referred applicants are more likely to be hired and to accept offers (Burks et al. 2015) |
| Reaches people who aren't job hunting | Employees can approach people they know who aren't on job sites | No data yet (follows from how referrals work) |
| Employees put the company's appeal into words | Referring employees think about why they would recommend the company, which also gives you a read on their engagement | No data yet |
Sources as in the text. Cost comparisons are averages by route, not comparisons of the same role.
The research covers US companies and may not apply directly to Japanese SMBs. And the finding is "about as productive", not "more productive". The strength of referral hiring is not that referred people are especially good, but that they stay longer and cost less to hire. You can compare the cost per hire by route with the cost-per-hire calculator.
In my experience, referrals tend to perform better, because they often integrate better (especially when working in the same team as the referrer), are socially incentivized to do well, and are often a good cultural fit. Employees often understand much better than HR what it takes to work at your company, what the day-to-day challenges are and how to fit in, and their gut judgment is usually one to follow. They are also your best salespeople, because they can talk about the job opportunity from experience and with the credibility of a pre-existing relationship. Because your employees are better at attracting talent that fits your company, you end up with new joiners who often ramp up more quickly and perform better overall.
Bonus
Referral bonuses: around ¥100,000, paid to employees as wages
The reward for a referring employee (a referral allowance or bonus) is written into company rules and paid as wages, through payroll like any other pay. The typical amount is around ¥100,000, and 4 in 10 companies with a referral program pay none.
The rule comes from Article 40 of the Employment Security Act. It states that anyone recruiting workers must not give rewards to their own employees engaged in recruitment, except when paying "wages, salaries or other equivalent payments". Violations carry up to 6 months' imprisonment or a fine of up to ¥300,000 (Article 65). In other words, a reward for a referring employee is allowed when it is paid as wages.
Yamagata Prefecture's labor information site also says employee referral bonuses "need to be paid as wages or salary", and that the amount and payment date must be set in the work rules or wage regulations (WEB Rodo Yamagata). Companies that regularly employ 10 or more people must write any temporary wages into their work rules and file them (Labor Standards Act, Article 89). Companies with fewer than 10 employees have no such duty, but should still set the payment conditions in writing. There is no official view, from labor standards inspection offices or elsewhere, on how large an amount can still count as an "equivalent payment" (BUSINESS LAWYERS). Avoid amounts far out of line with your other allowances.
Referral bonus amounts (3,088 companies with a program)
Tokyo Shoko Research (June 2026)
- No bonus paid
- 40.9%
- ¥10,000 to under ¥100,000
- 20.7%
- ¥1 million or more
- 0.8%
In TalentX's survey (2,073 companies), the average referral bonus was ¥121,806, and both the median and the mode were ¥100,000.
A higher amount does not necessarily mean more referrals. TalentX says how the program is designed matters more for the number of referrals than the bonus amount (TalentX). When setting the bonus, decide the timing and conditions first. Wages once paid are hard to claw back, so set conditions that must be met before payment, such as "paid after N months of employment" (full payment of wages, Labor Standards Act, Article 24).
Before you decide on an amount, remember this: an unfilled role, which produces nothing for you, is extremely expensive. Filling it through an agency costs about 30% of the first-year salary. So even if the referral bonus feels high compared with your employee's monthly salary, it is absolutely worth it.
For SMBs, I recommend anything between ¥150,000 and ¥300,000, ideally paid after the probation period ends. This encourages the referrer to introduce people who will stay, and to help them ramp up.
Also, don't cap the number of bonuses an employee can earn! If one of your employees keeps referring good people, there is no reason they shouldn't be rewarded proportionally. Remember that it benefits your company greatly too, so the company's interests are aligned with the employee's. This is a win-win situation you want to promote.
| What to decide | Rule | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Who to pay | Employees in an employment relationship with your company, including part-time and contract staff | Employment Security Act, Article 40; MHLW recruitment operations manual |
| How to pay | In money, through payroll with salary. Not gift cards or goods | Labor Standards Act, Articles 11 and 24 |
| Where to write it | The amount, conditions and payment date, in the work rules or wage regulations | Labor Standards Act, Article 89; Yamagata Prefecture guidance |
| Income tax | Withhold as employment income | Income Tax Act, Article 28 |
| Social insurance | If paid 3 times a year or less, usually treated as a bonus, with a bonus payment report filed within 5 days. Confirm with the pension office | Japan Pension Service |
Who can be paid: paying anyone other than employees needs permission
Article 40 only allows rewards paid as wages to your own employees. An employee is defined as "a person in an employment relationship with the employer", which excludes former employees (alumni), friends outside the company and business partners. Paying anyone other than employees to recruit for you counts as "outsourced recruitment", which needs permission from the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare and approval of the fee (Employment Security Act, Article 36). Paying someone who keeps referring people as a business may also be seen as unlicensed job placement (Article 30). Welcome referrals from outside the company, but pay bonuses only to your own employees.
Tax and social insurance on the bonus
A referral bonus paid to an employee is employment income, so withhold income tax as for salary and bonuses (Income Tax Act, Article 28). For social insurance, anything paid as compensation for work 3 times a year or less is treated as a bonus whatever it is called, and a report of bonus payment for insured persons is filed within 5 days of payment (Japan Pension Service). On the other hand, the rules also exclude "temporary payments" from remuneration (Japan Pension Service FAQ), and we found no official document saying which applies to referral bonuses. Check with your local pension office before paying for the first time.
Steps
How to start referral hiring: 6 steps to set up the program and announce it
Decide the rules first, then announce referral hiring internally. There are six steps; the ones most often missed are writing the bonus into your rules (step 3) and getting the referred person's consent (step 5).
-
Decide the roles and the profile you want referrals for
For each role, describe the work, the experience needed and the kind of person you want, in words employees can explain to others. If employees don't know who to refer, no referrals happen.
-
Decide the referral program rules
Decide who can refer, which roles are covered, the bonus amount, when and on what conditions it is paid, when it is not paid, and how to refer. The table below lists what to include.
-
Write the bonus into your work rules or wage regulations
Companies that regularly employ 10 or more people write it into their work rules and file them with the Labor Standards Inspection Office (Labor Standards Act, Article 89). Under 10, still put it in writing and show it to everyone. The work rules template helps with the wording.
-
Announce it internally
The announcement covers the open roles, the profile you want, the bonus and its conditions, how to refer, and the fact that referred people can be rejected. Keep job information accurate and up to date, and update the announcement when it changes (Employment Security Act, Article 5-4). Don't announce once and stop: announce again whenever the roles change.
-
Take referrals with the person's consent
Ask employees to talk to their acquaintance and get their agreement before passing their contact details to HR. The company collects applicants' personal information only for the stated purpose of hiring (Employment Security Act, Article 5-5; Act on the Protection of Personal Information, Article 21).
-
Select on the same criteria and tell the referrer the result
Keep the referring employee out of selection and decide on the same criteria as for other applicants. Tell the referrer the result and thank them for the referral. The detailed reasons for a rejection are the candidate's own information, so don't over-share them with the referrer.
The best place for SMBs to start is to formalize a proper referral campaign, which can be either temporary or ongoing. You want to incentivize employees, so you need to provide some kind of reward, which in my experience works best as a referral bonus. Then formalize the terms and process in a document you share with all employees, so everyone has the opportunity to refer. Campaigns that are loosely set up and have no concrete reward often flop right away, because referrers have nothing to gain.
| Item | Example wording | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Who can refer | Current employees, including regular, contract and part-time staff | Bonuses can only be paid to your own employees (Employment Security Act, Article 40) |
| Roles covered | Open roles announced internally | A clear scope makes announcing and preparing selection easier |
| Not eligible | People already applying or in selection; referrals by HR, recruiters or managers involved in selection | Avoids double payments and influence on selection |
| Bonus amount | ¥N per hire (can differ by role) | The amount goes into the rules (Labor Standards Act, Article 89) |
| Payment conditions and timing | Paid with the salary for the month in which the hire completes N months of employment | Clawing back after payment is difficult (same Act, Article 24) |
| When it is not paid | If the hire leaves before the condition is met, or if the referrer has left | Prevents disputes |
| How to refer | With the person's agreement, tell HR through the set form | States why the personal information is collected (Employment Security Act, Article 5-5) |
| Selection | The referrer does not take part in selection; decisions use the same criteria as for other applicants | Basics of fair recruitment screening (MHLW) |
Referral program setup checklist
Before launching the program, check each item from the top. You can save it as a PDF with your ticks and print it for an internal review.
Referral hiring
Program setup checklist
0 / 8 done
Checks based on Articles 5-5, 36 and 40 of the Employment Security Act, Articles 24 and 89 of the Labor Standards Act, the Japan Pension Service procedure for paying bonuses to employees and MHLW's basics of fair recruitment screening.
Watch out
Drawbacks and pitfalls of referral hiring: preparing for similar hires, rejections and early leavers
The drawbacks of referral hiring are that hires tend to be alike, that personal relationships are involved, and that you can't predict how many hires you'll get or when. Most problems can be prevented by the rules you set when designing the program.
There is research on the bias. In a hiring experiment in Malawi, men rarely referred women; when explicitly asked to refer women, they could refer qualified ones, but adding a performance bonus did not change the pattern (Beaman et al., Journal of Labor Economics, 2018). Another analysis found that most of the bias from networks can be offset, depending on how referrers act (Rubineau and Fernandez, Management Science, 2013). The bias is not inevitable: limit it through how you describe the profile you want, and by combining referrals with other hiring channels.
| Problem | Why it happens | How to prevent it |
|---|---|---|
| Hires are all alike | Employees tend to think of people similar to themselves | Describe the profile in specific terms. Recruit through job ads and other channels in parallel |
| A rejection makes things awkward between referrer and candidate | The referral is taken as "almost hired" | When the referral is made, tell both sides that selection is the same as for other applicants and rejection is possible. Share the result with the referrer, with thanks (the candidate gets a written rejection) |
| An early leaver turns the bonus into a problem | The bonus is paid on joining and the company tries to get it back later | Set conditions to be met before payment, such as "after N months of employment" |
| Referrals become forced, or turn into quotas | Headcount targets are imposed on departments or individuals | Keep referrals voluntary, and never penalize employees in evaluations for not referring |
| Personal information is passed on without the person knowing | Employees send an acquaintance's CV or contact details first | Accept referrals only through the set form, after the person has agreed |
Volume and timing are also unpredictable. Referrals depend on whether employees know someone who fits, and people who already have a job need time to complete their resignation. For roles you need to fill quickly, combine referrals with job ads or agencies. You can check typical time to hire with the time-to-hire benchmark. Setting the bonus too high is also a risk, because it becomes hard to justify as wages (bonus rules).
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about referral hiring
What does "referral" mean in Japanese hiring?
Japanese HR uses the English word "referral" as a loanword. It means an introduction or a recommendation, and can also mean the person introduced. In hiring, a "referral" is an introduction by an employee.
What is a referral program?
The rules a company sets for referral hiring, also called an employee referral program. They cover who can refer, which roles are open, the bonus amount and payment conditions, how to refer and how selection works. If you pay a bonus, write the amount and conditions into your work rules or wage regulations.
How much is a referral bonus in Japan?
Around ¥100,000 is the most common level. In a Tokyo Shoko Research survey, 40.9% of companies with a program paid no bonus, and among those that did, "¥10,000 to under ¥100,000" was the most common answer. TalentX's survey found an average of ¥121,806 and a median of ¥100,000. The bonus is paid as wages, with salary.
Are referred candidates more likely to get hired?
The selection criteria are the same as for other applicants, so a referral does not get anyone hired by itself. US research does find that referred applicants are more likely to be hired even with similar skills, and more likely to accept offers, probably because they know the company and the job in advance. There are no official statistics comparing pass rates in Japan.
Won't it be awkward if the friend I referred is rejected?
It can be, so tell both sides at the time of the referral that "selection is the same as for other applicants, and rejection is possible". The company shares the result with the referrer and thanks them, and treats the detailed reasons for a rejection as the candidate's own information.
What are the drawbacks of connection hiring?
Hiring on the strength of a connection rather than ability risks hiring people who don't fit the job, and looks unfair to other employees. MHLW's basic principle is that selection is based on the applicant's aptitude and ability. Connection hiring is not prohibited by law.
What else is referral hiring called?
In English, it is also called employee referral hiring, or an employee referral program when it is run as a scheme. Japanese companies use the English loanword "referral" for the same practice, or call it an employee introduction system.
Can referral hiring be used for new graduates?
Yes. Usually incoming hires or young employees introduce juniors and friends. But only 12.4% of new graduates hired in 2025 came through connections, fewer than through schools or job ads. The bonus and selection rules are the same as for mid-career hiring.
Can I pay a referral bonus to former employees or outsiders?
Bonuses can only be paid as wages to your own employees. Paying anyone else to recruit for you counts as outsourced recruitment, which needs permission from the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare and approval of the fee (Employment Security Act, Article 36). The usual design is to welcome their referrals but not pay them a bonus.
Are referral bonuses subject to tax and social insurance?
A bonus paid to an employee is employment income, so withhold income tax. For social insurance it is usually treated as a bonus, with a bonus payment report filed within 5 days of payment, but there is no official document on its treatment, so check with the pension office.
About the author
Emmanuel Gendre
- Former Google recruiter
-
12 years in talent acquisition
LinkedIn
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We advise SMBs on HR and recruiting in Japan. SaiyouTeam is an HR and recruiting consultancy: we do not introduce candidates.
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Official sources
This guide is based on the laws, statistics and official documents below, and on surveys and research by named publishers, most of them in Japanese. Open each link to check the figures and the underlying rules with the issuer.
- e-Gov law searchlaws.e-gov.go.jp Employment Security Act, Articles 4, 5-4, 5-5, 30, 36, 40 and 65 Definitions of recruitment and job placement, permission for outsourced recruitment, the ban on rewards for employees engaged in recruitment, and penalties.
- e-Gov law searchlaws.e-gov.go.jp Labor Standards Act, Articles 11, 24 and 89 Definition of wages, payment in cash and in full, and what work rules must cover (temporary wages).
- e-Gov law searchlaws.e-gov.go.jp Income Tax Act, Article 28 The scope of employment income.
- e-Gov law searchlaws.e-gov.go.jp Act on the Protection of Personal Information, Article 21 Notifying or publishing the purpose of use when collecting personal information.
- MHLWmhlw.go.jp Recruitment and job offer operations manual (June 2025) Definitions of direct recruitment and of employees; the ban on giving rewards.
- MHLWmhlw.go.jp 2025 Survey on Employment Trends (published August 31, 2026) Hires by route into the job and by company size (e-Stat Table 16).
- MHLWmhlw.go.jp Overview of the 2025 Survey on Job Changers (published September 25, 2026) Route to finding the job: "connections (acquaintances, friends, etc.)" 22.2%.
- MHLWmhlw.go.jp Preliminary results of the FY2024 job placement business reports Fee per permanent placement: about ¥1.03 million.
- MHLWmhlw.go.jp Basics of fair recruitment screening Selection on criteria based on aptitude and ability.
- MHLWkouseisaiyou.mhlw.go.jp Fair recruitment screening site "Matters the applicant is not responsible for".
- Japan Pension Servicenenkin.go.jp Procedures when paying bonuses to employees Paid 3 times a year or less counts as a bonus; the bonus payment report is due within 5 days.
- Japan Pension Servicenenkin.go.jp What counts toward standard monthly remuneration (FAQ) Temporary payments are not included in remuneration.
- Yamagata Prefecturelabor.yamagata.jp Introducing an employee referral program (February 27, 2024) Bonuses are paid as wages or salary and set in the work rules or wage regulations.
- Tokyo Shoko Researchtsr-net.co.jp "Referral hiring" spreads to half of companies (June 19, 2026) 6,475 companies. Adoption rate, hiring methods with high retention, bonus amounts.
- TalentXtalentx.co.jp Statistical report on referral hiring practices (September 8, 2026) 2,073 companies, mostly companies that contacted TalentX. Adoption rate, average and median referral bonus.
- Mynavimynavi.jp Mid-Career Hiring Survey 2026 (2025 results) 1,500 recruiters. Hiring costs and use of hiring methods.
- Quarterly Journal of Economicsexperts.umn.edu Burks, Cowgill, Hoffman, Housman (2015) The Value of Hiring through Employee Referrals Nine US companies. Turnover, productivity and profit of referred hires.
- Journal of Labor Economicsideas.repec.org Brown, Setren, Topa (2016) Do Informal Referrals Lead to Better Matches? Likelihood of being hired, pay gap and tenure.
- Journal of Labor Economicsideas.repec.org Beaman, Keleher, Magruder (2018) Do Job Networks Disadvantage Women? Gender bias in referrals (an experiment in Malawi).
- Management Scienceideas.repec.org Rubineau, Fernandez (2013) Missing Links: Referrer Behavior and Job Segregation Referrer behavior and bias in the workplace.
- Kotobankkotobank.jp Digital Daijisen dictionary: "connection" Meaning of the word.
- Kotobankkotobank.jp Jinjibu HR glossary: "connection hiring" Meaning of connection hiring and its legal status.
- Weblioejje.weblio.jp Kenkyusha New English-Japanese Dictionary: "referral" Japanese translations of referral.
- BUSINESS LAWYERSbusinesslawyers.jp Employee referral programs and the Employment Security Act (October 24, 2016) No official view on whether bonuses count as equivalent to wages.
- Fujitsufujitsu.com Referral hiring program The referrer is not involved in selection; people already in selection are not eligible.
Important. This page is general information based on laws and published data as of October 23, 2026, not legal advice. Shares marked as our calculation are computed from the published headcounts. For individual decisions, consult a certified social insurance and labor consultant, a lawyer, or your local labor bureau or pension office.