As Employment of Disabled Reaches Record High in Japan, JR Subsidiary Seeks to Ensure Disabled have Contact with Customers

Extract from FNN via Yahoo! Japan

January 2 2025

Toda City, Saitama Pref – In December 2024, in a corner of the warehouse district of Toda City, Saitama Prefecture, where the north wind was blowing, a kitchen car where people with disabilities cook and serve customers was open. The staff member serving customers is a male with intellectual disabilities.

In the winter sunshine, he greets customers with a smile. When customers start looking at the menu, he naturally explains the products. This place is run by JR East Green Partners, a special subsidiary of JR East. In the office where the kitchen car is located, 10 people with disabilities each run their own business, and a total of 45 people work there. A man volunteered to serve customers “to grow as a person”.

As JR East promoted the employment of people with disabilities, they realized that many workplaces had no contact with the outside world. So, starting in the summer of 2023, JR East decided to have people with disabilities serve customers in the food truck, but at first, few people raised their hands because they had been teased or treated harshly, or they felt reluctant or anxious about interacting with people they had met for the first time.

Then, one person stepped forward, saying that he didn’t really want to do it, but he would try it in order to grow. That person was the intellectually disabled man who worked in the food truck mentioned at the beginning.

The man said happily, “The most enjoyable thing is seeing the smiles of the customers. I’m really glad I got to serve customers.”

Seeing this man enjoying serving customers, people thought maybe they could do it too, and the circle gradually expanded, and now nine people are working in the food truck. A young man with a mental disability who was working on the day of the interview said, “Customers come from small children to the elderly. It was a good experience and I’m really glad I got to serve customers. I got a call from the company asking if I could work on a day when I wasn’t on shift, so I did. I was happy because we had the highest sales ever.”

The food truck sells sweets made with locally grown strawberries and potatoes, and ideas from people with disabilities are also used in product development. They are actively involved in the development process, such as devising ways to make meringues fluffy and adjusting the amount of whipped cream to achieve the perfect taste. Sales are going well, with peak hours at lunchtime. There are more male regulars than female regulars.

In December 2024, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare’s Tokyo Labor Bureau released the results of a survey on the employment status of people with disabilities. The number of people with disabilities employed by private companies reached a record high of 251,901 (a 5.3% increase from the previous year). Meanwhile, 17,369 companies in Tokyo have not met the legal employment rate, and of these, 9,785 companies do not employ any people with disabilities.