Japan’s labor ministry has recognized the death of a 24-year-old Matsuri Takahashi as a case of karoshi, or death by overwork.
Takahashi worked more than 105 extra hours in a single month, the Asahi newspaper reported.
From November, workers at Dentsu Inc. won’t be able to log more than 65 hours of overtime a month — down from the current limit of 70, company spokesman Shusaku Kannan said Tuesday.
Dentsu’s decision comes as the government explores policies to improve the nation’s working practices. A government-backed panel began meeting last month to tackle issues ranging from excessive overtime, low salaries of part-time workers and a stagnant female workforce.
“Workplace reform isn’t just a societal issue, it’s an economic one as well,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo on Sept. 27 at the first panel meeting. “If we revise overtime rules, we will improve work life balance, making it easier for employees — including women and the elderly — to work.”
Nearly a quarter of Japan’s companies reported some workers logging more than 80 hours of overtime a month, according to a labor ministry survey of more than 1,700 firms last fiscal year. About 21 percent of employees worked more than 49 hours a week, compared to 16 percent in the U.S., 12.5 percent in the U.K. and 32 percent in South Korea, the ministry said in a paper on “karoshi,” or death from overwork.
“We can change this way of working in Japan,” said Naohiro Yashiro, a professor at the Faculty of Global Business at Showa Women’s University in Tokyo. “If we set proper rules it is not impossible for the Japanese to work in the same way as the Europeans.”
Dentsu is the latest company to make an concerted effort to limit overtime. Fifty firms, including Daiwa Securities Group Inc. and Seven & I Holdings Co., have signed a pact to end excessive work hours.
Yahoo Japan Corp. is considering the implementation of a four-day working week, and from October it began covering commuting expenses by bullet train — subsidizing travel by up to 150,000 yen ($1,440) a month, according to the Nikkei newspaper.
Tokyo’s new governor, Yuriko Koike, has also recently mandated that staff in government offices must go home by 8 p.m.
