Karoshi

The Japanese workers are well-known as workaholic. Of course ardent businesspersons in foreign countries work no less hard that the Japanese. Generally speaking, however, the people of the small island work longer than any other countries. According to the data by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, among major developed countries, Japan has kept the No 1 position in working hours. Especially when the economy was in full swing in late eighties, the annual working hours run much ahead of the second runner.

There are some reasons for its long working hours except the volume of work itself. Lifetime employment system, one of the particular Japanese employment systems is one fundamental reason. Once companies hire employees, they in principal keep the employment until retirement. Even though the companies are in financial troubles, firing employees is the last resort. Conversely, when the Japanese companies have to cope with emergent work or the expansion of their business, they tend to let existing employees do with the additional jobs for the time being. Under the fast-changing business circumstances, it’s a wiser choice not to hire extra employees for fear of increasing labor cost in the future. On the other hand, those existing employees fear increasing working hours .

As for another reason, one of the Japanese people’s characteristics, the group-oriented behavior seems to have something to do with this hard working situation. When one of the colleagues in a department has a lot of work and has to do overwork for it, some of the other peers also stay in office to keep the colleague’s company. Particularly if it’s a boss, subordinates hesitate to go home although they finish their work. While those workers don’t recognize, they take long working hours for granted and naturally accumulate fatigue.

To take it serious, the government set the target of the annual working hours down to less that 1800 hours by 1996, revising the Labor Standard Law in 1994. The point was that the legal working hours in a week reduced form 44 to 40. Needless to say, companies can let the employees work longer over the legal working hours, but they have to pay the additional payment of overwork for the increased four hours to employees. It has also been pointed out that the number of working days has to be reduced. Helped by the government’s instructions, many of the Japanese companies have adapted five day work. Thanks to the great efforts by both the government and private companies, the annual working hours have gradually been decreasing. To see the chart, the figure has become almost the same as the economic giant or the US.

Nevertheless, there are still a lot of deaths from overwork so-called karoshi. This kind of death is, in general, defined as the one resulting from such symptoms as sudden strokes apparently linked to work. Indeed, the number of karoshi approved by the Workmen's Accident Compensation Law has edged up in the couple of years despite the shortening of the annual working hours. This is because the law has been revised to loosen the approval criteria for karoshi. The number may increase from now on since the government has decided to approve karoshi resulting from chronic fatigue just recently(consider past 6-month working conditions the date before a patient's symptom appears). Moreover, suicide from chronic fatigues has pushed up the number of the deaths from overwork in the upraising trend of suicide itself. Those suicides are so tired at work that they desperately choose death to escape from reality.

It's pointed out that there are signs before getting serious. Insomnia, for example, is one of the particular warnings for Karoshi. This is the condition we can't sleep at all although we feel too much fatigue. If the condition continues, it could lead to Karoshi when the worst comes to the worst. In the case of suicide resulting from Karoshi too, there must be something wrong with the suicides long before making the final choice. Families or colleagues have to recognize the signs. This king of risk, however, seems to be a very personal matter. Although the government and companies take the utmost preventive measures, it comes to the very person who faces the Karoshi risk in the end. It's important to manage oneself in everyday life.

<International comparison in annual working hours>

White Paper by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare