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This paper discusses employment policy measures that should be taken in an emergency, focussing on the measures actually taken in response to the great East Japan earthquake. When many workers were laid off immediately after the earthquake, employment adjustment subsidies were used to help employers maintain employment. However, the funds for such subsidies were soon nearly depleted. At the same time, people who were laid off or who lost their jobs but were ineligible for the subsidies were covered by extending unemployment benefits. The new job seeker support system was set up to provide training for people ineligible by employment insurance, while granting subsidies to training organisations, However, this new system, in its current state, leaves a large amount of room for improvement. Meanwhile, fund projects, which are flexible and convenient to use, worked well to some extent in preventing unemployment in the wake of successive crises such as Lehman crisis and the great East Japan earthquake. When formulating employment policy, it is necessary to consider whether support should be provided intensively to individual enterprises with high job creation potential, or whether it should instead be provided to groups of enterprises. Designing a resilient employment system which can withstand a crisis is a challenge for the future.

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