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Report touts benefits of second jobs for workers, firms

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Sleep is so overrated.

34 ( +36 / -2 )

So somehow, there will be added number of hours to each day to allow multiple businesses to employ low salary ( not going to get a rise if you have a second job) the shrinking pool of workers? They seem to want to squeeze this lemon until the seeds bleed.

31 ( +36 / -5 )

a second job.... and work till 70 or 75? then a "post-retirement career".... J-Inc have got it all sewn up....

30 ( +32 / -2 )

Last time I worked for a japanese company (ages ago) I was told I could not do any other work/part time job outside of the company. I was also forced to take the tuna-packed trains despite having a car/motorcycle and securing a parking spot near the company, "you cannot commute by car", commuted by motorcycle almost everyday though.

Now I must have some 5 or more jobs, none which I have to work for anyone, waste my time on stupid reports or constantly being told what to do by crazy control freaks, I have a life, my own time, and I own them. Dont have to beg to a stranger everytime I need a day off. The best decision of my life was to start working 3 days/week for my previous company (bold decision) and spend the rest of my time focusing on what I really wanted to do. It was a jump start in life.

25 ( +29 / -4 )

I am not against people working more, but they must be rewarded for it and get ahead, not just get by.

Both in the West and in Japan, we seem to have gone from a society where only the husband worked, like my upbringing in the 1970s, to one where the husband and wife both work full time, but the family is no better off. They don't get to save more, in many cases less, and actually retire later. What's happened is the cost of living/housing has simply risen to absorb the second salary. This is regression to poverty, not progress.

17 ( +20 / -3 )

The telling bits come at the end -

employers’ concerns and limits regarding overwork

Mitsubishi Estate using online monitoring of employees at their ‘second jobs’

Labour shortage withstanding, encouragement to do something besides work surely also needs to be considered.

14 ( +17 / -3 )

Less sleep for us, more taxes for them.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

@finallyrich: Sounds like you figured it out and are finally rich.

Congrats

12 ( +15 / -3 )

Some years ago, I had a second job on weekends. I needed the allowance of my main company, but that was no problem.

But I did that second job because of interest and fun, not for the money.

The payment was per hour and very cheap.

to have at least 10 hours of rest before their next workday.

Same rule in my company, and they are really monitoring with that and are strict that workers follow that rule.

They also set the overtime work to a limit to 45 hours a month.

Even 45 hours a month is already crazy, most of my coworkers are doing 60 hours or more per month overtime.

Many of my Coworkers work until midnight, and want to be back in the office next morning at 8am.

But because of the 10 hours rest rule, it is not allowed. But my coworkers are upset about that rule.

Crazy!

And how can you have an additional work besides that?

But as a foreigner in a japanese company, you have a benefit, you can deny doing overtime.

If you deny doing overtime, everybody say...it's ok, he is a foreigner.

During all my years in a japanese company, I played out the foreigner card multiple times. And with that card, it was no problem for me to work in an additional job, a few years ago.

11 ( +15 / -4 )

Many companies forbid their employees to hold second jobs.

I will never work in Japan again, praise be….

11 ( +18 / -7 )

Lol, on top of the horrific overtime many Japanese employees are already forced to do without pay, they now want to encourage them to take on another job to address labor shortages?!! They do realize that there are only 24 hours in a day right? Instead of asking people to work a second job why not streamline the awfully slow business procedures that plague Japanese companies, digitize their paperwork, and stop being so risk adverse? Japanese employees work the hardest and longest and yet have some of the lowest productivity rates in the world.

11 ( +14 / -3 )

Where are people in Japan supposed to find the time to work another job? They're already doing a lot of unpaid overtime just to keep their current job.

11 ( +13 / -2 )

"Taking 4 times as long with 3 times the number of people to do half as much."

Isn't that a company slogan somewhere?

Shock factoid: Apparently the numbers are in and employees have been more productive working four days per week from home.

Don't let Japanese companies hear that.

Don't you love when everyone stands when Auld Lang Syne plays at 5PM, everyone says, "お疲れ様でした" then everyone sits back down and continues pretending to work until the boss leaves?

11 ( +12 / -1 )

The Americanization (neoliberalization) of Japan is complete! Part-time employment now dominates all over Japan. Baito jobs are the future!

In fact, this article embellishes part-time employment as good is quite alarming. Those Keiretsus now push the American corporate agenda upon Japan.

10 ( +15 / -5 )

As usual, many articles about reports produced by industrial organizations appear in the media, but very few articles on reports produced by labour organizations. Does not seem that news media is upholding standards of fairness and objectivity.

10 ( +12 / -2 )

The report compiled by the Japan Business Federation, known as Keidanren, focused on the way increasing flexibility in allowing people to take on different, additional work can address labor shortages as well as dissatisfaction with the country's rigid corporate culture.

What graciousness from the overlords at Keidanren. As if their decades of wage suppression as profits were hoarded by Japan Inc. have not created the necessity for many to take on second jobs, "side-hustles", gig work merely to keep up with inflation which has exceeded stagnant wages.

9 ( +15 / -6 )

Next report from Keidanren pointed to the unused labour pool of orphans who could be taught to operate machines and pick vegetables while being supported by the state negating the need for wages, and it provides two skill sets, while keeping the employer’s from being responsible for any affiliated costs. Evil predominates when it comes to business.

9 ( +13 / -4 )

@Reckless

True. Actually, John Maynard Keynes predicted in 1930 that, thanks to technological developments, people will work 15-hour working weeks. Although he was the economist that inspired post-war development, he couldn't predict neoliberal economics in which the many work for the profits of the few and are conditioned to be grateful for that.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Awful piece of corporate propaganda

8 ( +11 / -3 )

@Reckless

The reason I escaped the J-corp is pretty much the same of any self-employed person I know: cultural differences (and this comes from someone who's been studying 日本語 since I was 15 and came here 5 years later). Fed up with the ningen-kankei bs you have to put up with everyday at the office. At one point I felt pity for all the people around me, who seemingly had nothing much going on in their lives, no religion, parental love, interest in romance and the opposite sex in general...have you ever wonder why everytime someone asks you to do a small task, say, put some beer cans in a box, they will stop you and show how you can use both hands to grab 5 cans at once instead of 2? As if the world is going to end or something. At first I thought omg do you want a trophy?? But after so many similar experiences I realized thats the culture here, of having very little going on and channeling all your life energy trying to do something better/faster and nothing else. No other human thoughts to fog your goal. You are a robot, an ant.

I dont have any advise outside of working 3 days/week in your company (if you can) and eventually asking them to work from home. That was the jump start in my life.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

OK, since there are benefits to having a second job, having many extra jobs must be incredibly more beneficial. If you have jobs to fill all you time, day and night, you don't need a place to live. You can just catch a few naps at one of your many workplaces and wash up in the bathroom.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

If company owners are allowed to own multiple companies, then employees should be allowed to work in multiple jobs.

People don’t see the injustice in that.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Propaganda much?

7 ( +8 / -1 )

All you have to do to really cut through the hypocrisy is ask: "How many of you on this double-job-recommending committee actually have two or three jobs yourselves? Really? Not a single one, huh? So then, please all the reasons why NOT...oh, I see. Those are good reasons!"

Businesses want people to have more "happiness", and you can't really be "happy" when your one full-time job keeps you in Forever Poverty, right? lol. Big Frowny Face!

One job just not enough? Not our problem! Go out and get a second job...or for even more "productivity", try juggling THREE jobs while you're at it! THEN you'll have no time for anything else but your "happiness".

7 ( +9 / -2 )

Seems like they are justifying not hiring full-time, so when the economy reports come out this will be there go to.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

All they see is a way to keep people working even longer. No notion at all of receiving better wages and working fewer hours.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Pay your workforce/employees a living wage, marvel in the productivity gains with the correct HR support structure in place.

To suggest employees take second jobs to deflect from the fact your remuneration stratagem is fallacious is fundamentally self-defeating.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

I actually do two part time jobs just to survive. My company has an unwritten policy of not doing part time jobs. I say unwritten as there is nothing in my contract that says I can't do it. I have had a second job for most of the years I have been at my current company. I was pulled in to my president's office one time for something and the fact that I was working a second job came up. For where I live I do make a decent salary and I thanked my president for it. I then proceeded to tell him that for raising five kids it was not enough. We talked more and came to the agreement that I had to prioritize my main job when needed. That has never been a problem. Little did he know that my part time job at the time was very near his house. About a year ago, I had a special salary allowance taken away and started a second part time job to replace that money. They know that if they tell me that I must quit my part time jobs I won't. So the subject never comes up. However sometimes an upper manager tells me that it is not allowed, I tell them that I have a agreement with the president and that pretty much stops the conversation.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

I have been placed on garden leave for 3 months (as part of my exit package from my current company) so am still being paid, but no longer working. Basically I am just sitting at home. My company said if I were to get another job within those 3 months, I need to inform them so they can stop paying me. But why should I tell them? - Why can't I just get a new job and continue to get my garden leave pay for the remaining 3 months - I don't see anything illegal about doing that. The only thing I can think of being a problem is having having health insurance from 2 different companies which is probably not allowed. Any thoughts?

6 ( +8 / -2 )

@finally rich

I understand where you're coming from agree with you. I'm not writing this to disagree, rather add my viewpoint. I had to escape corporate Japan as well.

However, I have a bit of a problem with how people try to excuse certain things as "culture". Yes, Japan, just like many East Asian, societies puts much less focus on the individual and rather than focusing on results, it is often desirable to focus on the process. But I honestly feel this kind of mentality has been very skilfully highjacked by neoliberal ideology where working "for the group" has become synonymous with being pretty much property of your company. The members of "the group" don't benefit from this type of mindset. Only shareholders and anyone who is high up in the corporate ladder. While "culture" is a notoriously difficult concept to define, I really don't think there is anything quintessentially Japanese about unquestioningly submitting yourself to exploitation. It's more, at least partly, the result of capitalist conditioning.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Don't increase wages and make conditions better but encourage workers to get a second job. Capitalism is so obsolete its continued existence is like a black comedy.

5 ( +10 / -5 )

Noun6976: Ask at the interview for the new job before you start. Tell them look my health insurance has been pay up to xx/xx/xx/ is that a problem ? It smart to ask.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

So much talk about hours and so little talk about efficiency.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Well they could re-open the disabled training schools the LPD closed due to apparently lack of money*, If they need workers so badly, might be able to find the money in one slush fund or another.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

-Mitsubishi Estate Co uses third-party software to monitor employees' working hours at second jobs.

How does that work for those working from home, for themselves or engaged in ad hoc labour as a second job?

-Lion Corp bans working in second jobs after 10pm.

Do they come round and make sure you are tucked up in bed with the light off?

If employment is restricted like a prison sentence, how happy and productive will your workers be? A second job gives them an opportunity to test an idea or start small. In most cases it will remain a side-job - they get extra income and the chance to do something different, maybe something physical, outdoors, or more rewarding.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Last time I worked in a Japanese company, there was a day-off use rate to improve.

With usually 10 days-off, there would be no better improvement for J-companies to increase that number with same wage (of course), and additionally, offer above that dedicated work day to work out of the box like training about agenda self-management/wellbeing.

Instead, we are all understanding the hive is looking for final stage of optimization of slave exploitation.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Importantly, the report makes clear it is focusing on workers who do not need to work a second job just for financial reasons; rather it looks at people who are dissatisfied and want a change.

It would be good to know the percentages. How many people do it for financial reasons? how many do it because they are dissatisfied and want a change?

As they talk about the second group they should do the same for the first group, but I guess they won't because it probably implies raising wages.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Neoliberal policies combined with late stage vulture capitalism are

benefitting the few at the expense of the many. Wealth extraction in full swing. How does this end?

4 ( +5 / -1 )

IT systems engineer

That job should be well enough paid that you shouldn't need two jobs.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

They don't get to save more, in many cases less, and actually retire later. What's happened is the cost of living/housing has simply risen to absorb the second salary. This is regression to poverty, not progress.

Extremely well put. Could have come straight out of the Neo-feudalistic playbook of Keidanren.

Importantly, the report makes clear it is focusing on workers who do not need to work a second job just for financial reasons; rather it looks at people who are dissatisfied and want a change.

Kyodo also has this wonderful bit of propaganda in the middle of the article. Conflating people with the means to give up an occupation to pursue a passion mid-career with the vast majority who must find diverse occupations out of raw need.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

Please! They’re killing me with comedy!

I wonder if they tell the American worker that it’s great to have two or even three jobs.

lol

benefits = we pay you low wages and we make tons of profit……. So you must take a second job. LoL

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I enjoyed the line where 22% "allow" their workers to have part-time jobs.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Did they take into account the 100 hours of overtime a month Abe said was perfectly acceptable (and also the hours beyond that that he refused to acknowledge were not) for just ONE of those jobs?

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Here I have been angling more and more towards working less, not more. As time goes on the value of money vs time becomes more and more skewed towards time for me. Money is great, of course, but it has diminishing returns once I make enough to live comfortably.

Capitalism won't rest until it has drawn every scrap of blood it can though, so any real support for anything that puts the labor over the capitalists isn't going to fly.

@GBR48

As for the incessant attacks on capitalism. What are you suggesting? Switch to the Chinese, Russian or North Korean model? 

Do...you think Russia is still communist? That hasn't been the case for a pretty long time now.

My suggestion has always been for a socialist-communist model that isn't being constantly undermined by capitalist powers. Cuba is my usual example as they have done pretty dang well for themselves considering how much they have to deal with from the US embargo, imagine if they were actually able to trade.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

And why the hatred for the gig economy? Do you want to be imprisoned in full time employment. Not all ad hoc employment is abusive. It works well for many people, especially single parents with kids in school and those who are looking after elderly parents.

Nobody who delivers for Uber Eats can support kids or their elderly parents comfortably. This reasoning is either disingenuous or out-of-touch.

As for capitalism. I'm not sure about others, but I can simply imagine a better world. There are specific policies (which actually used to exist before the neoliberal establishments got away with them) that could bring us closer to a fairer society.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

As for the incessant attacks on capitalism. What are you suggesting?

[...]

There's a lot wrong with the disgusting gulf between the 'too rich' and the 'too poor' and it needs fixing.

I'm not suggesting anything, because capitalism is great, provided you're not dumb enough to be in the 99.9% that are trading the only thing of value they have (time/lifespan) to make you orders of magnitude more money than you're paying them, while you sip martinis on a beach somewhere and enjoy life. It's great.

But if you're wondering why those 99.9% are complaining about a blatantly broken system, refer to your own list + the complete, utter and unchecked destruction of true value (nature) that we require to keep living on this planet, all in order to convert it into fake and fundamentally useless fake value (digits in accounts).

3 ( +4 / -1 )

@nonu: Interesting question about health because it also includes pension. Might trigger a fax or two at your initial company.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

Not specific to Japan, but if you work for a major company, you are not allowed to do any side job. The company does not want you to divert your energy and skills for others. But workers in major companies have generally could wages and benefits and there is no reason to loose time for any other jobs. Unless some wants to enjoy a part or a one day job during the weekend, but I have not heard of. Better to enjoy the weekends.

As for me, trying to get out from the J corporations, but in my field here, I can not escape it. Not ready to teach or work in another field. I have done it in the past, and at that time, was always thinking being back to my initial field for which I spent years studying

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Is the governmwnt going to add more than 24 hours to the clock? If people are already working 8 am to midnight, where do the extra hours come from?

2 ( +5 / -3 )

"Yo dawg, I heard you like slavery so we put some slavery in your slavery so you can be a slave while being a slave".

Excellent, some true 4D chess thinking here.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

@GBR48

The only problem with what you’re suggesting is that your boss at your part-time job expectsyou to spend as much time answering emails and correspondence as you would in a full-time job-where are the benefits?

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Also, look up "instrumental convergence" and the "paperclip maximizer" thought experiment, there's your issue with capitalism in a nutshell.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

They tout? Last time I head that word it was for an elixir that cured every ailment known to man.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

@Ingvar spot on !

1 ( +6 / -5 )

Many have commented without understanding, self sacrifice and suffering make Japanese who they are as a collective. You can work two jobs ideally in twelve hour shifts. To make the company and the hive mormoney.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Please sir may I have some more?

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Problem, too much work; their solution, double down and come up with reasons why you should be doing even more. Kicking and screaming they’ll go, but real change will only occur when a unified West presents them with an ultimatum; persist in this skewed playing field unfairness or suffer the consequences of restricted access to Western markets. Quid pro quo or the highway!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C7oAgrV6EoM

1 ( +2 / -1 )

people try to excuse certain things as "culture" …But I honestly feel this kind of mentality has been very skilfully highjacked by neoliberal ideology where working "for the group" has become synonymous with being pretty much property of your company. The members of "the group" don't benefit from this type of mindset. Only shareholders and anyone who is high up in the corporate ladder.

This here. Underline, underscore.

Be Hijacked, Looted and Robbed - shutup and dont complain. Do it for the "group" and cultures.

And for all your gaman, for us Looters, we will let you too drink from 'the trickle down off the blue pin stripe pant-leg of prosperity'

Benefits for us and Losses for everybody!!

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Another excuse for working people to death???

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I am old enough to remember when Japan had the best job security in the world and the fastest rising standard of living.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

By extension, then, just imagine how terrific it would be to have three jobs!

Leisure time with friends and family is for lazy chumps.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Japan's answer to everything..........work more

No thanks

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I remember the first day of my apprenticeship. At the end of shift I notice the old Polish tradesman had all ready pack up and standing at the time cock with card in hand. Hands washed hair combed he would arrive at the time cock about 1/2 minute before the clock hit end of shift. When that time arrived in go his card and off he was to the factory door. The fastest he moved all day. I learnt from that day on. Never work a minute over and if you can get away with it a minute less. That old Polish trademans became my father’s in-law.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

So now you are supposed to work two jobs just to keep up and never get ahead. No life just work. In the U.S. it is the side hustle movement where you have a side job just to make ends meet. I can see where the  “lying flat,” or tangping movement is coming from.

I guess actually paying a living wage is just out of the question for Corporations.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@ Peter: Great idea. And those fancy spray toilets have wide spray controls, massage settings, and variable hot water settings. You got it down man.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Yes, a splendid future awaits us. A full time job, then another second job and at night refilling the necessary rest online and cashless with welfare amounts, otherwise you won’t have the money for the electric community bus to your full time job next morning. lol

0 ( +3 / -3 )

CrickyToday  02:57 pm JST

Please sir may I have some more?

@Cricky: Made me laugh but it was, "Please Sir, may I have another?"

And with a big smile, he was paddled. Here they use a big white daikon.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

sad and pathetic

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@zichi

Last week you posted you were coming back? I have never had an employee job here

And that is true.

I will return for a short trip and periodically thereafter but Japan is no longer a place to thrive.

Inheritance taxes and the whole gamut make Japan an expensive proposition and I have no inclination to engage the tax office in Japan

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Workplaces globally have 'issues', typically the pay being too low for the low paid and too high for the wealthy. Japan is well known for its own specific workplace issues.

I wonder how commenters travelled half way round the world to take a job in Japan, learned the language (which is a huge personal investment), yet dislike it so much. The workplace culture of Japan is well known. Did you think it would be different for you? Western privilege?

Allowing folk to take second jobs or just do stuff outside work is a positive reform. It would help many people. I know lots of people in the UK who have side jobs. I'm sure loads of Americans do too, even if they are just trading stocks, renting a holiday apartment or selling online. Many people simply do not want to do just one thing for their entire working lives, and this offers an additional option. It's one small fix for Japan Inc., which could use plenty more.

And why the hatred for the gig economy? Do you want to be imprisoned in full time employment. Not all ad hoc employment is abusive. It works well for many people, especially single parents with kids in school and those who are looking after elderly parents.

As for the incessant attacks on capitalism. What are you suggesting? Switch to the Chinese, Russian or North Korean model? They're not too pleasant. Or do you just want to get some money every week from the government for doing nothing and top it up when you can be bothered? The lazy freeloading economic model does not stand up well to scrutiny.

There's a lot wrong with the disgusting gulf between the 'too rich' and the 'too poor' and it needs fixing. Maximum wage caps, a limit to the ratio of high/low salaries, a ban on excessive, tax-dodging bonuses and karoshi, a fair limit on overtime, proper treatment of part timers, promotion on ability, not age, restrictions on toxic, predatory and abusive financial practices. It needs to happen, in Japan and elsewhere. Relaxing the one job prison is a small part of those reforms. If you want to do something different with your life, it gives you an opportunity to sow the seeds, get qualified, start trading small scale or learn some new skills. It unlocks the 'Exit' from a job or career you may have grown to hate. It is a good thing. Over the last two years, our governments have taken much more control over our lives and work and restricted what we can do. Such reforms give us a bit more freedom. Welcome them.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

@HitoBito

Actually I'm sure most on the panel that gave the report are on this panel as a second job (paid) as well as business owners and/or advisors at institutes & companies. The rich always have multiply jobs...

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Side hustle, must American have, they also own a car

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

From memory, a second job is taxed at a higher rate than your first in Japan-another fantastic tax law..

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

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