Japan clamps down on debilitating overworked culture

It would appear that the overworked culture in Japan has escalated into a crisis, so much so that the country’s health ministry has moved to ban employees from working for 14 consecutive days or more.

The ministry plans to submit a bill to revise the labour standards law as early as 2026, in a bid to improve employee mental health in the country.

Under current legislation, employers are required to provide one day off per week but have the flexibility to schedule these as four days off spread across a four-week period. As a result, some employees have been known to work up to a staggering 48 days.

Moreover, a “36 Agreement” made between an employer and a workers’ union means employees can be forced to work even on holidays, removing any limit on consecutive workdays.

The proposed bill also proposes simplifying the system for calculating overtime based on combined hours from multiple jobs and extending the Labour Standards Act to cover domestic employees, including housekeepers.

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In the 2023 fiscal year, employees’ compensation claims for brain and heart diseases caused by excessive work-related stress totalled 1,023, an increase of 220 from the previous year.

The number of approved claims, which exceeded 300 in 2002 and reached 392 in 2007, had been declining in recent years. However, that figure rose by 22 to 216 in 2023, marking a second consecutive yearly increase, reported The Japan Times.