, Columnist
Japan Gains Ground on Wasteful Workaholics
Companies are cutting endless hours at the office, but wages are headed in the wrong direction.
Go home.
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First, the good news: Japan has finally begun to wrestle with its endemic problem of long, unproductive working hours.
Japanese companies are famous for forcing their employees to work unpaid overtime long into the night. Workers are afraid that if they leave early, they’ll be passed over for promotions and be ostracized by their colleagues. Companies are reluctant to let employees take work home with them, often citing data security concerns. As a result, in many Japanese families it has long been commonplace for men not to see their families on weeknights -- and now that Japanese women have entered the workforce in large numbers, the strain of long hours on family life is even more severe.