JNA Activities

Recruitment and Human Resources

Nurse Centers located in each prefecture nursing association support job placements for Japanese nurses using a nationwide computer network. The Centers also offer seminars and training programs for those preparing to return to the nursing profession. The Central Nurse Center in Tokyo supports prefecture Nurse Centers by gathering information on occupational trends and analyzing research findings on job placements and job qualifications.

Relieving the burden of night-shift and improvement of long working hours

There are approximately 1.47million nurses in current workforce, consisting of public health nurses, midwives, nurses and assistant nurses.
According to the JNA survey, 11% of full-time staff nurses left their job between April 2010 and March 2011.  This figure includes the nurses who found the job at other health care institutions.  However, it is important to set the environment for nurses to be able to continue their work preparing for coming super aging society with fewer children.     

One of the JNA missions is “Promoting to create the environment in which nurses are able to continue working peacefully throughout their life”.  Specifically, we’ve focused on the effort to improve the night-shift and shift-work and long working hours, and to promote work-life balance of nurses.

Promoting work-life balance of nursing personnel

Work-life balance (WLB) is the condition that each worker could balance between work life and family life without difficulty.
JNA is working on to promote WLB of nursing personnel including steering the regional “Workshop project for the promotion of WLB of nursing personnel” which is joined by delegates from regional hospitals working on to realize WLB of nurses and discuss about analysis of present status and action plan.  JNA also publishes guidebooks about WLB.

Nursing WLB index survey(N-WLBI)

JNA developed WLB index survey for nursing personnel and utilize it at the workshops of promoting WLB of nurses etc.
N-WLBI is modified evaluation indicators of WLB for general business into nursing profession. 

JNA has accumulated the objective data which reflect reality of WLB of Japanese nursing personnel and will utilize those data for benchmarking.

Relieving the burden of night-shift and improvement of long working hours

There are several reasons for nurses quit job.  One of the reasons is long working hours including the burden of night-shift and overtime.  It is essential to improve these issues so as to prevent nurses from quitting jobs and to promote their retention.
JNA is now making our effort to formulate “the Guidelines on Night-Shift and Shift Work for Nurses”, which indicates the risk factors of night-shift and relieving measure.