TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has presided over a major increase in cabinet staffers, handpicking economic and national security advisers from various ministries to concentrate power in the executive branch.
The Cabinet Office and Cabinet Secretariat now have a combined staff of 3,638, a 17% increase from fiscal 2012, when Abe returned to the prime minister's seat. Compared with fiscal 2001, the year of a major government overhaul, the growth amounts to 33%.
