10月2日（金）変わる、職場の「当たり前」〜with NIKKEI

Workforce Diversity Is Pushing Uniform Reform

Uniforms have long served two purposes in Japanese workplaces: projecting unity and making job roles instantly recognizable. Both assumptions are now being challenged. The number of foreign workers in Japan keeps rising, people aged 65 and older account for roughly one in seven employed persons, and more than 700,000 workers with disabilities are employed in the private sector—a figure that climbed with the statutory employment rate being raised to 2.7% in July 2026.

The implications for clothing are real. Someone with a larger build, someone who has difficulty remembering where things go, someone sensitive to others' stares, someone with limited shoulder or arm mobility—each experiences a standard uniform very differently. The newsletter article highlighted companies that conduct in-depth interviews with their own employees before designing bespoke workwear.

Reporter Kawakami put it plainly: "Wanting to hide your body shape, not wanting sweat stains to show, wanting to put clothes on and take them off easily—most people have felt at least one of these things." A design tweak made for a minority often ends up making work more comfortable for everyone. Shikoku Bank (四国銀行) in Kochi Prefecture is one example: it introduced business-casual dress and scrapped the women's uniform entirely, erasing the visible dress-code gap between men and women.

Female Taxi Drivers Reach an All-Time High

Data from the National Hire-Car & Taxi Federation show that female taxi drivers nationwide stood at 14,382 as of the end of March 2026—a 10% increase year-on-year and a record high. Even so, women represent just 5.9% of all drivers, roughly one in seventeen.

With the industry facing an acute labor shortage, taxi companies around the country are investing in environments that work better for women. Ikoma Kotsu is installing dedicated women's lockers and restrooms and is in discussions about contracting with a childcare facility nearby.

Lawson's Avatar Service: One Operator, Multiple Stores

Convenience-store chain Lawson has launched avatar-based customer service at three stores in Sapporo. A character displayed on an in-store monitor greets shoppers and walks them through the self-checkout process.

At first glance the avatar looks like an automated AI system, but behind it is a human operator working from home. The key innovation is that a single operator can handle several stores at the same time—while the avatar manages customer interactions, floor staff are free to focus on shelf maintenance and store organization.

Lawson began piloting avatar service in 2022. By 2026 it has expanded to 78 stores across the Tohoku, Kanto, Kinki, and Shikoku regions. The measured results are tangible: self-checkout usage has improved by more than 15%, and time that store staff spend on register-related duties has dropped by an average of more than 1.5 hours per store. The format also opens a potential new employment path for people who cannot commute to a physical location.

What the Three Changes Have in Common

Uniforms, taxis, and avatar customer service may seem unrelated, but a single logic runs through all three: stop fitting people to the system and start fitting the system to the people. Even the premise that customer-service work requires physical presence at a store—something that seemed self-evident until recently—is now being dismantled.

A taxi company that works well for women almost certainly works better for men too. Avatar service can open employment to people kept away from workplaces by disability, childcare, nursing responsibilities, or other circumstances. In an era of persistent labor shortages, rethinking the "obvious" is becoming a competitive necessity—the condition for attracting and retaining workers at all. What looks unusual today may well be the new normal within just a few years.