Forum - View topicINTEREST: Government Investigation Finds 37% of Businesses in Japan Are Guilty of Illegal Overtime W
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504NOSON2
 Subscriber Posts: 647 Location: Body:Santa Barbara, CA ~ Heart:New Orleans, LA |
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Yeah, in June, Japan also released policy guidelines for a four-day work week — but no legislation mandating it. We’re talking about a nation with a phenomenon known as karoshi (death by overwork). In 2017, the government introduced a plan to bring about what’s called “premium Friday’s”; basically, they allow you to leave the office at 3pm on the last Friday of the month, which is generally pay day (yes, such a thing is considered blasphemous over there). Only a small percentage of companies actually engage in it. I love Japan, but I had to take a break from that type of toxic, apathetic work environment for a while. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9951 Location: Virginia |
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That is only the ones with illegal overtime. If I read the article properly, with the proper labor-management agreement, they can work you almost 55 hours a week all 52 weeks a year and be legal. I suspect it also doesn't include the hours people put in "off the clock". I wonder what the requirements are for large businesses and just what constitutes a large business?? |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 671 |
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That's not that surprising. Most lower-mid tier retail managers in the US work 50 hours a week as non-overtime employees. Their OT doesn't kick in until they get past 50, and their pay is often just $1 or $2 above the average non-managerial employee. Retailers hate to have to pay OT, however, so if they go over 10 one day, they're expected to cut from another. It was harder when most of these folks were salaried instead of hourly, and the rules for OT for salaried employees were less vocal on the matter, so you could have these people working even longer hours for no extra pay at all. And of course there's always the "off-the-clock" issue. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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That lower than expected number is actually quite high because Japan has a relatively high proportion of small businesses compared to medium and large businesses. I think the perception is true that its the larger businesses where overtime happens. Those smaller businesses like bath houses, ryokan, pubs and mom & pop restaurants (which probably account for Japan's ridiculously high proportion of small businesses and are most likely counted in that Investigation figure) have really benefited from various automated ways to reduce staff and costs.
I know it's a bit old but based on the 2016 Economic Census for Business Activity, small enterprises made up almost 85% of Japan's total businesses. That leaves only 15% medium and large, meaning even if as much as 1/3 of small businesses got hit with illegal overtime, it would figure well over HALF of the remaining medium and large businesses did too. In addition, the working elderly of Japan's aging population, whom are simply never going to get overtime work, fit nicely with the plethora of small business workplaces I mentioned earlier. |
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504NOSON2
Subscriber Posts: 647 Location: Body:Santa Barbara, CA ~ Heart:New Orleans, LA |
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The cap is the same for large businesses, but small and medium-sized enterprises were allowed to adhere to the change a year later (April 2020, as was reported by ANN via Otakumu via NHK) than large businesses (April 2019). A large business is defined as one that (i) employs over 300 people and (ii) generates at least 300 million yen annually (roughly, $2.7 million). Japan has a culture of its white-collar workforce viewing extremely long work hours (unofficial overtime or “off the clock”) as honorable. It’s not uncommon to see offices filling up on a Friday evening, rather than emptying out. Japan desperately needs its own European-style progressive/socialist/labor political revolution. |
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Honeyman
Posts: 135 |
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I very much agree with what you've mentioned. I get the idea of being honourable and if it were, say, a family business it would make logical sense to work hard for the continued benefit of said business. Doing it for a corporation that essentially will benefit via increased profits that the workers may or may not see seems like a trick to me. Its not really honourable if employees are giving most of their waking hours to the companies they work for. We don't always have the best balance but 40 hours a week as standard allows a better work-life balance than working 10-12 hour days as standard (people's lives should never be for corporation's to dictate what they can/can't do otherwise something has gone wrong on a fundamental level). Furthermore just let hard-working people recharge their batteries rather than run them into the ground, then make out that they just haven't worked hard enough when its probably the opposite. |
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