Fortune (June 13)
“Before the pandemic, Japan’s workforce faced longstanding problems, like chronic overwork, low productivity, and too few women. Letting employees work from home may have helped ease all three, in addition to preventing the spread of COVID. But Japan’s failure to more fully adapt means it will likely miss out on the carry-on benefits of remote work that some corporations elsewhere are warming to.”
Tags: Adapt, Benefits, Covid, Employees, Failure, Home, Japan, Longstanding, Overwork, Pandemic, Productivity, Remote work, Women, Work, Workforce
The Atlantic (October Issue)
“Modern-type depression” is growing more prevalent in Japanese workplaces, but “its reach might extend far beyond Japan.” In the West, depression is often linked to personal sadness, but in Japan, depression “has long been considered a disease of fatigue caused by overwork.” Patients with modern-type depression “have the desire to stand up for their personal rights, but instead of communicating clearly, they become withdrawn and defiant.”
Tags: Defiant, Desire, Fatigue, Japan, Modern-type depression, Overwork, Patients, Personal rights, Prevalent, Sadness, West, Withdrawn, Workplaces
The Guardian (October 5)
“Japan has again been forced to confront its work culture after labour inspectors ruled that the death of a 31-year-old journalist at the country’s public broadcaster, NHK, had been caused by overwork.” NHK’s delayed reporting of employee Miwa Sado’s death from overwork in 2013, “piles pressure on authorities to address large number of deaths linked to labour practices.”
Tags: Broadcaster, Death, Inspectors, Japan, Journalist, Labor, NHK, Overwork, Sado, Work culture
Financial Times (March 31)
“On one hand, Premium Friday is a gimmicky, well-intended campaign to offset Japan’s overwork culture.” Even though less than 4% of Tokyo’s workers actually clocked out early on the inaugural Premium Friday, the campaign does represent “something fundamentally important to the next few years of Japanese investment: a defining theme of ‘working practice reform’ that will (for better or worse) penetrate all sectors of the economy.”
Tags: Economy, Gimmick, Investment, Japan, Overwork, Premium Friday, Reform, Tokyo
