Only 37% of firms met Japan gov't target of cutting commuters by 70%

Pathetic. As one of the 37% my team is fully teleworking since last April, not once going to the office. This is a mixture of incompetence, fear of change and a useless middle management structure who can no longer get away with doing nothing.

The greatest impediment to progress and change in Japan nearly always comes from the private sector, not the government.

Only 37% of firms met Japan gov't target of cutting commuters by 70%

This is happened before when Japanese Government try to new things but is has no tooth. By the time actual data available it just shows result that low result. When Japanese government try to encourage paternity leave it only shows only few people really take paternity leave. It happens again when government try to encourage teleworking.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/14/national/social-issues/paternity-leave-survey/

Tele-work will have to be fully in place if they want the Olympics to take place with spectators. Spectators plus the normal rush hour train scene ain't going to cut it. Government is also to blame, you still have politicians saying that face to face meetings are important but we all know that it's only to rationalize their social wining and dining. Old geezers just won't change...

Yasutoshi Nishimura, minister in charge of the government's coronavirus response, held a remote meeting with leaders of the country's largest business lobby Keidanren, which released the survey, and other major business bodies, and requested they push members to promote teleworking to help meet the target.

Some companies are having massive savings on infrastructure costs through telework, Dentsu selling their premier headquarters.

Some of that huge pandemic windfall is going to trickle down to the public any day now right??

I belong to the other 63%.

The japanese management of my company is so deeply stuck in the 1950s, that they competely ignore Home Office.

Everyday in the full packed Chuo Line, Yamanote Line, change at one of the busiest area Shibuya and meet up with 300 coworkers in a tiny office, makes my life really ~interesting~.

One of my coworkers who was told on multiple occassions to work from home whenever possible, is facing disciplinary action for not having a good enough reason for working at home so much. Ridiculous.

Not every job can be done from home, via telework.

Much work, including mine, has to be done in person.

The media or anyone else should not be trying to make us feel guilty for commuting to work to earn a living

White collar workers can work remotely but I would say they are not the majority of a workforce in Japan (or any country). Not all those commuters we see on trains every day are going to offices. I could easily name 20-30 occupations that require employees to be at their workplace that are not white-collar jobs. And the only way to get to and from their workplaces is by train (or bus in some cases).

The problem with selling things is that you need a buyer. So if Dentsu found a buyer for their HQ, the buyer must have a plan to fill up the building. So, yes, you reduced the Dentsu commuters, but you replaced them with others.

In the case of Dentsu at least, the government surely wouldn't leave them in the lurch right?

largest business lobby Keidanren, which released the survey, and other major business bodies, and requested they push members to promote teleworking to help meet the target. Not going to happen, because their imagination not up to the task.

There are a lot of jobs that can't be done remotely. Regular office paperwork probably can, but a lot of people on the train might work in positions or departments where they can't work remotely.

My job is almost impossible to do remotely. My company has gotten a lot of backoffice workers to work remotely, they've also moved a lot of their customer interaction online, but there's no way they could ever get close to the 70% of employees working from home target.

The government should first enforce and make all tech companies WFH. But for field engineer such as data center operators will have no choice but to keep the hardware working. But for the majority all that’s required is a VPN and a zero trust architecture.

@Monty: Not interesting, but rather scared and miserable.

Nishimura said the number of people commuting decreased by 40 percent in the Tokyo metropolitan area based on calculations of train passengers and 30 percent in prefectures in western Japan

Who in his right senses believes any numbers produced by bureaucrats.

I am sure those that commute by train don't see any change at all.

The government should be setting the trend by having 70 percent of central and local government workers work from home. They never get mentioned like they are not part of the work force.

Big surprise. And will they be punished? Nope! In fact, JR is cutting late trains so that earlier trains will be more packed and they can save money.

I believe 37% is already quite a good score for Japan.

Who would have even tried to imagine that a year ago? Definitely not me for sure.

Selfishness like this is why there is a SOE people!

Pathetic. As one of the 37% my team is fully teleworking since last April, not once going to the office. This is a mixture of incompetence, fear of change and a useless middle management structure who can no longer get away with doing nothing.

Like TokyoJoe said!

only around 37 percent of firms...

Do we know whether this includes SMEs? Does it include irregular workers?

It's ridiculous that this target has not been reached. Whilst it is true that some work cannot be done at home, it is equally true that you don't need all of your staff to work at home all of the time to achieve it.

At my (small) company we have achieved this by simply switching the default from "office" to "home". If you want to come into the office you can, but you need to a. explain what you need to do that can't be done at home, and b. coordinate with colleagues so that the number of people in the office at the same time is minimized. We're also insisting that people coming to the office do so outside of rush-hour, and that client meetings are always proposed as online, and that is the default unless the client really wants to do it face-to-face.

The result has been that none of our staff visit the office more than once a week, nobody travels in rush-hour, and our clients have been extremely positive about doing 90% of meetings online.

This is not difficult to achieve - we're in a business where pre-covid 95% of our work was done in-person, and we were able to make this switch before the end of March. Most of the obstacles could and should have been overcome by most office-based business by now.

We knew this was going to happen..Not everyone has a fax machine at home..so of course they have to go to work.

When you have government officials not compiling to these very requests then why the heck should the rest of society.

Not a surprise. I’m not part of the 37% so I can witness the “horror” with my own eyes everyday. In every station or train I’m always asking myself: “Are we really under a state of emergency”? Going all sweaty to work is part of the “ganbaree” culture so we gotta pack those trains huh? ... sighs ...

The figure did not include those considered essential workers.

Here is the trick how to cut numbers conveniently.

Essential workers are a limited part of population, less than 20%.

Very little time needed for work from office. Only food shops and cleaners, police, firemen necessary...

One of my acquaintance is a govermment employee.

She needs to go to office for hankos because of paperwork only.

So medieval, yet things change but very slowly. Judt need the dinosaurs to let die.

Not everyone has a pc at home, and fax. haha

There are many things this survey doesn't include. There are companies that are permitting overtime to be teleworking during the pandemic. There are also other companies allowing 1 teleworking day per month. That also complies with the government request.

Yasutoshi Nishimura, minister in charge of the government's coronavirus response, held a remote meeting with leaders of the country's largest business lobby Keidanren

I'd be interested to know how many of these governmnent ministers holding 'remote meetings' acutally logged in and connected themselves? Or does one of their lackies do all of that for them then, show them where to sit.

With the age of ministers/officials in Japan I would be surprised if many could this this all themselves, but they are quite prepared to lecture the general population on the same.