Tokyo  - Senior officials from Group of Eight (G8) labour ministries met Monday in Niigata, central Japan, to discuss the need to maintain a balance between work and life as well as career development.

The meeting, which opened Sunday, noted how the governments need to help people keep the balance between work and leisure by improving nursing care and child-rearing systems amid expanding life spans in the G8 nations.

Japan, as a host of G8 summit in July in northern city of Toyako, wants to lead the G8 nations because it is experiencing rapid ageing.

During the three-day meeting, the G8 labour officials also agreed to improve situations for the "working poor."

Although the participating officials agreed that the "working poor" class has been "a serious phenomenon" among the world's most powerful economies, such as Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, they failed to come up with concrete measures, Kyoto News Agency quoted a Japanese Labour Ministry official as saying Monday.

As the talks kicked off Sunday with a focus on the need to fight the growing wealth disparity in the world, officials on the second day of the meeting discussed whether deregulation helps stabilize employment. Some feared that it would increase unstable part-time workers.

"Our societies are faced with negative aspects of globalization, and it's needless to say that we need to closely cooperate to ensure our labour market systems operate in a smooth and orderly manner," Japanese Labour minister Yoichi Masuzoe said Monday.

Masuzoe was the only cabinet labour minister attending the meeting, with the other seven nations being represented by vice ministers and other senior officials. (dpa)