Japan wants its hardworking citizens to try a 4-day workweek

4 days a week, 12 hours a day? 8 hours a day? 2 hours a day? It sort of depends on the offer, doesn't it? And how does the spouse feel? Eight more hours having to deal with someone who does nothing when at home? Or more time to enjoy a wonderful relationship as a family.

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Japan, a nation so hardworking its language has a term for literally working oneself to death, is trying to address a worrisome labor shortage by coaxing more people and companies to adopt four-day workweeks.

Is this going to be like Premium Friday?

That means relatively few Japanese workers felt highly involved in their workplace and enthusiastic about their work, while most were putting in their hours without investing passion or energy.

With he poor remuneration and incentivization that's a given.

To ensure none of the NS Group's workers feel penalized for choosing an alternative schedule, Ogino asks each of her 4,000 employees twice a year how they want to work. Asserting individual needs can be frowned upon in Japan, where you are expected to sacrifice for the common good.

If the Jgov does not enforce the laws about wage theft of overtime there is no way they will enforce this. It will just be another quickly forgotten campaign.

There needs to be radical labor reforms like this that are strongly enforced, such as the ones proposed by Bernie Sanders in the USA.

Hundreds of millions of yen was pumped into the short lived Premium Friday campaign a few years back which simply wanted workers to get off at 3pm on the final Friday of the month. It failed and pretty much stopped being mentioned within about 3 months.

If companies wouldn't allow their staff to leave a bit early once a month, its insane to think that at a time Japan is supposedly having a labor shortage they would give them an entire extra day off every week.

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The problem is not about having more or less hours, it’s the corporate mindset. What’s the point of the company ‘offering’ alternatives if the employees are still staying until late so they can compensate their poor base rate with overtime? If the junior employees must stay until manager or senpai leaves? If time is wasted in useless meetings and cigarette/coffee breaks? And it seems the government forgot the ‘success’ of that last Friday of the month thing.

different thing is if shacho stands in front of everyone, offers a decent salary rate and tells everyone: “if work is done, regardless your position, you’re free to go and do whatever you want, and please report any harassment to this email and actions will be taken”

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NEVER,

Japan is a hard working machine that thinks the harder you work the better off you will be.

Basically we are all victims of a system that is well established, well brainwashed, and well synchronized for one purpose only and that is to be a Government Mule.

My best friend Son just quite his what some consider the perfect job at an assembly plant in northern Japan at the age of 22, he only worked there for four years, worn out, lost weight, and somewhat disoriented.

He left his work housings complex and went back to his parents home completely a different person from what I heard. Not socializing well but has a good relation with his parents and brother.

His mom told me he was overworked and Power harassed by his managers and could not leave even when he submitted his quit notice so he just walked out and left his furniture and belongings behind.

So instead of working 95 hours in 6 days, you will be expected to work 95 hours in 4 days. Sounds like the perfect solution.

One thing the article should have mentioned is that Japan had the lowest productivity in the world - all these extra hours don't lead to more output, just wasted life.

The most productive economies are in Europe, in countries that do relatively few hours and have long holidays.

When you have led time, you focus on getting the job done. The longer you give yourself to do the task, the more useless tasks still spring up to fill the time.

But Japan is stuck in a mindset that once worked in factories - the longer you spend at a task, the more you will produce. This is no longer the case.

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Not a chance in hell of this happening here

A 2022 study showed that employees accomplishes the same amount in a four day work week as in a five day work week https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/nation-world-society/sociology/-study-pilots-four-day-work-week.html.

So, if you are an employer, I think the math speaks for itself. Three days off could make quite a difference.

Coincidentally, I discovered last Friday that Premium Friday was officially dropped on 26th May 2023. I wonder if there was a special ceremony to mark its ending. Perhaps it was even declared a big success in the magical world of the urgers. Tim Craig sounds like one of those credulous foreigners who has just come to Japan and has all the answers based on some mythical "culture" because they are fed to him by ideologically credulous Japanese. It's about power, Tim.

This is not happening

One of the good ways to increase divorce rate

Right, easy way to refuse to increase wages. Cut the work hours and then make everyone PT and not have to pay insurance or retirement benefits. You KNOW that there are businesses out there that will use this as a way to burn their employees.

A 4 day work week in Japan?

Put that on your list of things that will not happen in your lifetime.

We've got all the problems to your solutions!

With same salary and benefits?

“By realizing a society in which workers can choose from a variety of working styles based on their circumstances, we aim to create a virtuous cycle of growth and distribution and enable each and every worker to have a better outlook for the future,”

I really Hop So, Japan needs to do more in support of it's hard working under paid labor class especially in small businesses and companies.

They're trying, but they've got to do more than address the economic / financial points: they've got to change the way of thinking itself.

I have this running joke with my wife: what do you call an exhausted-looking man in a suit on a train at 8 in the evening? A part-time worker.

I think this will take a full cultural shift to really take hold.

4 days a week is amazing. I miss that schedule. But it only works for people that normally work 40 hours a week, not 60.

So no. A four days week is impossible for Japan.

Never going to happen. Japanese companies don't measure employee performance on results. Performance is measured on visibility in the office. Someone who works 4 hours a day and produces more results will be valued less than the other employees who are "present" in the office 12 hours a day. It's all about appearance and harmony, not substance and performance.

A couple of things on this. 1. I'll believe it when I see it. 2. How will they implement this? By making people stay at work a little longer to compensate for the extra holiday? This might work in other countries that implement work flexibility on its employees. However, work culture in Japan is mostly rigid without much for flexibility. Just saying.

If the salaries are reduced for the additional day off, it will be pointless.

Keep the salaries the same and expect an equal level of productivity on the days worked.

Time in the office does not always equal more productivity.

Very noble and good intent this for sure,but all I see as you usual is

the J-government wants,urges but when it comes to mandate such rules to improve human rights leaves everything in the hands of of the corporations to decide.

So in the end as usual it is always lip service and nothing is gonna change.

Lower production. That will solve Japan's economic woes! NOT!

The challenge for Japanese companies is that they need to realise that it is maintaining productivity, not the number of hours worked that is important. Work smarter, not harder. Having working parents do 4 x 12 hour days instead of 5 x 8 hour days is not going to make childrearing any easier or more attractive, if anything, it could make things worse, with young children spending the majority of the week having 0 contact with their parents.

a government entity was established a couple of decades ago to try to convince companies and employees to stop working the ridiculously long hours of “after work.”

ironically, it was disbanded because all the bureaucrats were working so many hours that they were exhausted.

you can’t make this stuff up.

This:

Although 85% of employers report giving their workers two days off a week and there are legal restrictions on overtime hours, which are negotiated with labor unions and detailed in contracts.

seems to be an incomplete sentence.

And this:

Proponents of the three-days-off model say it encourages people raising children, those caring for older relatives, retirees living on pensions and others looking for flexibility or additional income to remain in the workforce for longer

is also true of working from home, which companies are also rejecting now that they have more control over their employees.

A four-day workweek will work only if pay remains the same; workers can’t afford lower pay with the rising prices of everything.

That's bare of any logic. If problems are not solved, services not provided, products not produced and sold successfully locally and global wide in a system of a five-day-week, how could all that be reached in a system of a four-day working week? Finally, and of course that will be hurting and a torture, but there have to be done more workloads and spent a lot more of working time, when considering the more elderly people that need more care, younger people that need income, accommodation and social security so that they potentially can form couples, marry and grow children. There's simply an average of 20% less income or wealth left to distribute if one working day out of five is cut. Last but not least, if also the salaries sink one fifth, then I would like to ask everyone, how do you manage to make ends meet and split the less money now on three days of leisure time? Staying home depressed and hungry three days, then working hard for four days and again staying home depressed and hungry? Believe it or not, but you probably don't want such kind of life.

It's all talk by politicians, with absolutely no intentions of fulfilling anything, they probably didn't even talk to any companies about the idea, just another brain fart from politicians trying to bolster their careers, happens in all countries. It would only happen if it would hurt the average person, then and only then would it go through.

I feel people who blame everything on "low productivity" have never worked in a Japanese company. The problem isn't low productivity (although Japanese do work slow and not super efficiently), the problem is the overload of tasks imposed on a single employee. Especially in smaller companies tasks that should be spread out between 4-5 people are given to 1, mostly in order not to hire extra staff. Combine this with ultra-short deadlines (very often whole presentations or project applications are ordered to be made in just 2 days before the deadline) and this is how workers stay till midnight. You might be imagining this the Western way: that you'll work fast with high productivity and finish your tasks early enough to go back home, but at that very point you'll be given 50 more tasks to complete before the next morning. The main issue with Japanese companies is greedy employers who do not want to hire more staff when the work needs it. Period.

4 day week would only be possible with a Universal salary for everyone.

In our current society there is simply no way companies could cope. No way people would be able to sacrifice a days pay. There’s just no way.

It might have been better to start with getting people to go home at the end of their shift and upping their pay so they didn't earn less as a result. Keeping them caged in work for extra hours, doing nothing very much, until the boss wanders off to the izakaya is daft. Let them go home and share a meal with their family. Then start seeding the working year with more single day holidays to be used as required. In such a fixed system, baby steps may be required. And as Chabbawanga says - smarter working is essential. Lose the pointless box-ticking, unnecessary meetings and the like.

The main issue with Japanese companies is greedy employers who do not want to hire more staff when the work needs it. Period.

Cut to the heart of the issue, excellent post.

C-suite legacy staff with massive incompetencies and lavish compensation will be supported while the rest languish under long hours and stingy benefits.

Japan Inc. and their patrons the LDP both follow this model.

So significant change will require radical government legislation and enforcement, which will not come from the present LDP or their cronies.

I've been on my Mon-Thu schedule for many years now, even before I become fully free from corporate Japan.

I have absolutely no idea how people manage to live their lives while being chained to a physical location Mon-Fri.

I don't mean the less free time to spend with your family, friends, doing your hobbies, etc. how do these people manage to go to the doctor, dentist, city hall, bank, pick up a friend at the airport, etc.

All I remember is that I had to schedule my dentist several weeks in advance and ask for a supervisor for a dayoff, which he asked me "the reason" before passing the same paper through multiple departments to collect all the required hanko so I could finally have my 24h free, madness.

1 dayoff during the week should be mandatory to all sei-shain positions. For part time, workers should be encoraged to take 2～3 dayoffs every week.

Recent work-life balance ranking is as follows. Japan is ranked 24th out of 100 countries. It seems to be improving. With a four-day workday, it gets even better.

https://remote.com/resources/research/global-life-work-balance-index

By the way, karoshi has become an English word where it is easier to say than worked to death, a concept that is hard for some Americans to understand.

Seeing how most Japanese companies seem to struggle with understaffing and an inability to hire people already, I can't see four day work weeks becoming a thing except for a handful of the largest companies.

By the way, karoshi has become an English word where it is easier to say than worked to death, a concept that is hard for some Americans to understand.

The "they have a word for it!" is a very lazy form of argument. The Japanese language may have the word "karoshi" but it also has words for other things, like "bathing in the forest". Much to my chagrin, it doesn't have an established single expression for "passive aggreassive", which comprises a huge chunk of bullying in Japan. This includes workplace bullying/"corporate culture" that pushes people toward karoshi.

Horrible idea, all it will result in is that employees will get a 20% in pay with zero reduction in workload.

Even now, I work at least 1 weekend days and many of my co-workers working on both weekends days, all as a service. The PIPs are being more and more common now as companies are actively looking to shed more people, and the job market is so horrid that you are pretty much done for if you leave.

I really wish this will happen here, but unfortunately, because of the mentality and corporate culture, I don't see this ever taking roots.

And this article should clarify. 4 days/week with the same salary, less salary? less working hours (8x4, not 12x4?)?

If working for the same salary, but 8H less/week, then people might try to accept that. In any other cases, this will fail, because most of the people DO WANT to do overtime, because of the low base salary and such.

Let’s start by revamping the ojii-san’s who pretend they are working.

Yes, Premium Friday was a spectacular failure. Putting it at the end of the month was dim and smacked of policy makers having little idea of how many offices at many companies operate. People aren't going to leave early before effectively a deadline to get stuff done.

Personally I suspect that if workers could change jobs more easily, the conditions offered to them would naturally improve. Companies get away with mistreatment because people can't afford to switch to other companies that recognize their experience and qualifications only enough to employ them and still start them at the bottom on a 250,000 yen a month for six months probation.

Japanese are obsessed with the idea or image of being super busy. When people continuously/obsessively tell me how busy they are I often reply "thats too bad, you should take some time to relax ".

The blank stares I get in return are priceless. :-)

Being busy, is not always being productive and being a perfectionist is anti productive.

I bet many would just use their excess free time to work a second job.

I was wondering when this story would reach JT. It was on the AP news site over a day ago. Slow moving like that storm. What Japan needs is better time management and to teach people to work more efficiently but that would shatter the facade that many people around the world believe: The people being so hardworking and devoted that it causes sleep deprivation, etc. Some of us in the know know better.

Japanese are obsessed with the idea or image of being super busy. When people continuously/obsessively tell me how busy they are I often reply "thats too bad, you should take some time to relax ".

The blank stares I get in return are priceless. :-)

Being busy, is not always being productive and being a perfectionist is anti productive.

Agreed. It's interesting how often people use their busyness as a measure of importance. I hear about it all the time.

@Jdoe, I couldn’t agree more, what’s up with everyone so obnoxiously obsessed with reminding each other how “busy” they are? I know firsthand that longer hours doesn’t translate into efficiency and that’s the case I see here all the time. Plus all that time they spend eating and drinking together, I almost think they enjoy staying at the office because they don’t want to return to their teeny weeny homes with one bathroom.

The issue in Japan is that, for most people, working insane overtime is the only way to make halfway decent wages. Until wages rise from their current pis*-poor level, workers will continue having to "work" overtime.

When I came to Japan, people worked a six-day week, the economy was booming and the country became no. 2 in the world. American complained that this represented an unfair trade advantage, forcing the Japanese government to change to a five-day week and destroying the economy. Goodness only knows what will happen with a four-day week.

Dumb idea. Keep the hours but raise the wages.

Let the companies decide. If some do this and their employees like it, great, if not, fine. The market will sort things out.

With same salary and benefits?

I doubt it, read the article again:

*of the 63,000 Panasonic Holdings Corp employees who are eligible for four-day schedules at the electronics maker and its group companies in Japan, only 150 employees have opted to take them*

Japan, a nation so hardworking 

This is BS disinformation continuously perpetuated by certain media. They are not hard working, they pretend to be in order to give the impression to their bosses that they are always busy and/or they are so inefficient that they spent a ridiculous amount of time doing unproductive things like talking in circles during useless meetings all day long. There is a reason why Japan’s productivity ranks lowest among G7 nations. Hard working does not typically result in abyssal productivity levels.

Let the companies decide. If some do this and their employees like it, great, if not, fine. The market will sort things out.

Reality is, there are many things in life you just dont care when you are single or there is no one waiting for you at home. I can't imagine myself working 5 days/week, much less working on a Saturday and seeing all the happy families out there while my own wife and son are home.

If they want to tackle the fertility problem they should make this issue a #1 priority.

Germany has a four-day workweek. Look how it turned out for them. Major economic decline. Things will not fare any better here if we go that route.

Japan, trying to look spiffy internationally with no fundamental change, as usual. So does this mean miserable weekends ( itself a foreign concept) with 20 hours of “homework”?

The concept of a 4 day week is as alien as recycling plastic bags-it just won’t ever happen.

I'll try again.

Less hours,same pay, same benefits will inevitably lead to workers taking a second job,and being penalised due to the antiquated tax system.

Job done.

My my, commentators in here did not dissapoint...

For many commnetaros here, no matter what Japan or its citizens do, damned if they do, damned if they don't 

Cool stance

Flexible 39 hour weeks. monitored overtime.

However, with full HR oversight.

4 day working week for many small/medium businesses in the present employment climate is simply unsustainable.

Focus on bring the bottom up, equal contractual labour rights, pay for all staff/employees.

I think the sceptical outlook by most commentators is based on their " real" experiences in the Japanese working system.

It's just not and never going to happen.

All the comments that address Japan's woeful productivity hit the nail firmly on the head. The Japanese work hard at achieving little in order to appear hardworking. And many are rewarded for doing so. What's most alarming about this is the skills gap that lies behind it, rather than any perceivable lack of work ethic. The majority of the workforce here simply aren't very good at what they do.

talk is cheap but reality on the ground is very different...

this may not happen in Japan during next decade or even two...

Demography is the only parameter for Japan profuctivity at national level. More too many oldies and inexperienced women that are given no chance to take executive positions and you end up this way.

Workforce is falling and Japanese mindset about work hardly just a little.

Adaptation is key in an international environment.

Didn't see one single comment of dozens here saying this idea could work. Usually there is mixture of commends in support of and against something. What does that tell you?

If the multiverse exists, not any one of the alternate Japans would implement this successfully. You'd sooner see pigs fly and unicorns prance down the streets.

So if the company can get the worker to do the same work, for the same money 4 days a week. The company is thinking….. hanging! The other twelve our are free gravy work/ profit.

anyone remember when computers were going to give us more free time, 4 days a week. lol then the companies realized. No,”we can fired people! (Corporate speak is downsizing) still get the same work done. And the staff still work five days a week and still save a time of cash. And which hospital is going to let a nurse work only four days a week with a shortage of nurses. This is only going to be for the googles of the world. Not Nitori. Otherwise…..your part…. With less benefits.

So they only want the "hardworking citizens" to work a 4 day week. Therefore it should be possible to declare oneself as a "non-hardworking citizen" and get away with a 2 day week.

it's all talk.

Let's see some action for once.

That's bare of any logic. If problems are not solved, services not provided, products not produced and sold successfully locally and global wide in a system of a five-day-week, how could all that be reached in a system of a four-day working week?

I think this ignores the massive inefficiencies that go on in workplaces across the world. Millions of people spend hours do effectively nothing with the time at work other than shuffling papers and looking busy. there have been very popular books written on the subject.

If businesses can focus on improving productivity, then the same amount of work can definitely get done in less time. Anyone here who has worked at a Japanese business will be able to tell you how much time is put aside for pointless meetings, waiting around for a certain person to get back from somewhere before a task can be signed off etc etc.

Of course you cant give everyone the same day off when there are jobs that need to be done at or by a particular time, but you can certainly stagger the working schedules to accommodate a 4 day working week for the majority of people.

As much as I love Japan, it cannot be denied that pettiness is ingrained in this culture. “If I had to do it, then YOU have to do it,” nicely sums up why some problems in this country never get solved. The current managers had to work long, long hours so there is no way in hell they are going to cut the younger generation any slack.

It doesn't matter what initiatives are drawn up, trying to enforce these ideas into law, you have got to change the management mind set that is ingrained in years of tradition, and culture.

Ah_so

One thing the article should have mentioned is that Japan had the lowest productivity in the world - all these extra hours don't lead to more output, just wasted life.

That is an interesting statistic. But I don't think Japan is concerned about having the highest output. I think Japan is more concerned with having higher quality output and it shows. Japan has some very high quality products. I do know that Japan has one of the most rigorous work environments of any country. Not sure what the effects would be with a 4 day work week.

You want to end extreme overtime in Japan. Than the government needs to create stiff laws with penalties if violated.

Stiff laws that create manditory pay for all time logged in. If the government wants to end 残業for good all the government needs to do is to make any form of work after your scheduled to leave any time after your salary will go up two times what you are paid during normal work hours! That will end usless afer working hours and benefit empolyees.

If you work for yourself it's not an option

I choose to work six days a week because there's the demand and I want the money.

Hello Kitty 321Today 11:53 am JST

When I came to Japan, people worked a six-day week, the economy was booming and the country became no. 2 in the world. American complained that this represented an unfair trade advantage, forcing the Japanese government to change to a five-day week and destroying the economy. Goodness only knows what will happen with a four-day week.

Don't try to blame the U.S. The bubble burst and Japan remained static, stubborn, unwilling to change with the times. The same tired comedians have been on TV for 30 years too

So, instead of 12, they'll be working 14 or even 16 hours a day.

It is all about promoting spending to get people’s money.