Hello Work AI-Enhanced Job Matching and Career Guidance System

Overview

Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) is developing and piloting an artificial intelligence system to enhance job-matching services and career guidance at Hello Work, the country's national network of public employment service offices. Hello Work operates through 544 locations nationwide, serving approximately 4.4 million registered job seekers and handling 9.95 million job openings. The AI initiative was formally launched in September 2024, when MHLW established an internal AI Consideration Project Team led by the Director of the Vocational Stability Bureau. The project team commissioned PwC Consulting LLC to conduct a formal study, which included stakeholder interviews with AI vendors, technology development companies, and Hello Work frontline personnel. The resulting report was published on 31 March 2025, and a public summary was released by MHLW on 22 April 2025.

The AI system under development comprises two principal components. The first is a staff-facing recommendation engine designed to support Hello Work counsellors in their job-matching activities. This component uses machine learning trained on approximately ten million historical records of job seeker profiles and employer vacancy data to propose optimised job matches. The system analyses application rates and hiring success rates, then outputs the top ten recommended positions for a given job seeker, with reasoning provided for each suggestion. It also generates advisory recommendations for employers whose vacancies are proving difficult to fill, suggesting specific adjustments such as relaxing certification requirements or adjusting wage levels to improve fill rates. Hello Work counsellors review all AI-generated recommendations before presenting them to job seekers, maintaining a human-in-the-loop oversight model.

The second component is a public-facing concierge function utilising generative AI, deployed on the Hello Work Internet Service (HWIS), which receives approximately 78 million monthly accesses and through which more than 80 percent of job postings are submitted. This chatbot-style system provides automated responses covering basic Hello Work information, unemployment insurance procedures, subsidy consultations, job posting guidance, and terminology explanations, available on a 24-hour, seven-day basis. The concierge function is intended to reduce the burden on frontline staff and improve service accessibility for users who cannot visit physical Hello Work offices during business hours.

The initiative operates under the explicit principle, stated in the MHLW summary, that AI will not replace all staff work but serves as a tool to enhance the convenience of Hello Work services. This framing reflects a deliberate decision to position AI as an advisory support mechanism rather than an autonomous decision-making system. The staff-facing recommendation engine began pilot testing at ten Hello Work locations nationwide in fiscal year 2025 (beginning April 2025), with the public-facing concierge function scheduled for launch in January 2026.

The context for this initiative includes significant structural challenges facing Japan's public employment services. Job seeker registrations at Hello Work declined by 26.3 percent over the decade from 2014 to 2024, while the current job-matching success rate stands at just 25.9 percent. Japanese Hello Work counsellors manage a caseload of approximately 173 unemployed persons each, substantially higher than comparable public employment services in Germany (15 per counsellor), France (38), and Sweden (42). The AI system is intended to help address this staffing imbalance by augmenting counsellor capacity.

The regulatory and governance framework for this initiative is shaped by several instruments. The Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI), administered by the Personal Information Protection Commission, governs the handling of personal data including job seeker profiles and employment records. APPI applies uniformly to both public and private sector entities and does not provide special exemptions for employment data. The Digital Agency's Guideline for Japanese Governments' Procurements and Utilizations of Generative AI, approved on 27 May 2025, establishes procurement and risk management requirements for generative AI systems in government operations, including the appointment of a Chief AI Officer (CAIO) within each ministry and mandatory reporting of risk incidents. The OECD's 2025 report on Artificial Intelligence and the Labour Market in Japan specifically recommended that MHLW enhance the matching functions of Hello Work through AI and that the Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform 2025 promoted AI use at Hello Work to improve job matching and staff working conditions.

The data types likely used include job seeker profiles, employment histories, qualifications, vacancy descriptions, application records, and hiring outcome data. No official schema or data dictionary has been published for the AI pilots. The MHLW project team report acknowledges risks and challenges requiring ongoing monitoring but has not published a formal risk assessment framework or detailed bias audit procedures specific to the AI components.

Classification

Programme Details

Japan's national public employment service network (Hello Work), operated by MHLW through 544 locations nationwide. The AI initiative enhances job matching and career guidance through a staff-facing ML recommendation engine and a public-facing generative AI concierge function on the Hello Work Internet Service.

Implementation Details

Agentic AI

Risk & Oversight

Deployment & Outcomes

Sources

1. SRC-003-JPN-001 Digital Agency (2025). The Guideline for Japanese Governments' Procurements and Utilizations of Generative AI for the sake of Evolution and Innovation of Public Administration. Tokyo: Digital Agency (approved 27 May 2025). Available at: https://www.digital.go.jp/en/news/3579c42d-b11c-4756-b66e-3d3e35175623 (Accessed 24 Mar 2026).
   https://www.digital.go.jp/en/news/3579c42d-b11c-4756-b66e-3d3e35175623
2. SRC-005-JPN-001 Japan Telecommunications Users Association (JTUA) (2025). 'ハローワークがAIを活用した実証実験を開始' [Hello Work Begins AI Demonstration Experiments]. Tokyo: JTUA (Oct 2025). Available at: https://www.jtua.or.jp/ict/solution/reform/ai-jobmatching/202510_01/ (Accessed 24 Mar 2026).
   https://www.jtua.or.jp/ict/solution/reform/ai-jobmatching/202510_01/
3. SRC-002-JPN-001 MHLW / PwC Consulting LLC (2025). 'ハローワークにおけるAI検討プロジェクトチーム' 結果報告書 [Hello Work AI Consideration Project Team Results Report] (令和7年3月31日). Tokyo: MHLW. Available at: https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11601100/001478788.pdf (Accessed 24 Mar 2026).
   https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11601100/001478788.pdf
4. SRC-001-JPN-001 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2025). Press release: '将来を見据えたハローワークにおけるAI活用について' を公表 [Looking Ahead: AI Utilization in Hello Work]. Tokyo: MHLW (22 Apr 2025). Available at: https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/houdou/newpage_57223.html (Accessed 24 Mar 2026).
   https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/houdou/newpage_57223.html
5. SRC-006-JPN-001 OECD (2025). Artificial Intelligence and the Labour Market in Japan. Paris: OECD Publishing. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/artificial-intelligence-and-the-labour-market-in-japan_b825563e-en.html (Accessed 24 Mar 2026).
   https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/artificial-intelligence-and-the-labour-market-in-japan_b825563e-en.html
6. SRC-004-JPN-001 Personal Information Protection Commission (2023). Act on the Protection of Personal Information (Consolidated text). Tokyo: PPC. Available at: https://www.ppc.go.jp/en/legal/ (Accessed 24 Mar 2026).
   https://www.ppc.go.jp/en/legal/