Pasona Group disclosed in its first-quarter results that its subsidiary Pasona is the subject of a Japan Fair Trade Commission investigation into fee-setting in worker dispatch. The group said it is cooperating fully with the commission's inquiry.
What the company has said
The disclosure is a short note in the "other" section at the back of the quarterly earnings summary dated 15 October 2026. The JFTC is Japan's competition regulator. The note does not say when the investigation began, what conduct the commission is examining, or how it might end. An investigation is not a finding of a violation, and the note records none. The description comes from Pasona Group alone.
The subsidiary's business is in the group's Expert Solutions segment, which covers staffing. Segment sales rose 5.4% to ¥36.54bn in the three months to 31 August. The group attributed the rise to higher dispatch fee rates, revised to reflect better treatment of dispatch staff, and to one more business day than a year earlier. The note on the investigation draws no link to those rate changes.
The quarter around it
Group sales rose 3.1% to ¥79.33bn. Operating profit was ¥93mn against a loss of ¥568mn a year earlier. Ordinary profit was ¥94mn, against a loss of ¥64mn.
Profit attributable to owners of the parent was ¥496mn, against a loss of ¥606mn. That line includes extraordinary gains of ¥308mn, among them ¥237mn from the sale of shares in an affiliate and ¥61mn from the sale of investment securities. The prior-year quarter carried ¥520mn of Expo-related costs booked as an extraordinary loss. Operating profit, at ¥93mn, sits before these items.
The local revitalization and tourism segment lost ¥783mn at the operating level, compared with a ¥336mn loss a year earlier. Pasona Group pointed to start-up costs and depreciation from the long-stay wellness retreat it opened in June. BPO sales slipped 0.9% as large public-sector contracts peaked, though operating profit for BPO and Expert Solutions combined rose 30.7% to ¥3.36bn.
Guidance unchanged
Pasona Group left its forecasts for the fiscal year ending May 2027 as published on 15 July: sales of ¥325bn, operating profit of ¥1.5bn and a net loss attributable to owners of the parent of ¥1bn. The year-end dividend forecast stays at ¥75 a share, made up of a ¥15 ordinary and a ¥60 special payment.
Earlier Tokyo Brief coverage is also available.