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Japanese workers are still forced to work

excessively long hours

SAITO Chikara

Member of Rodo-soken Board of Directors

1. Regular full-time workers work 2,700 hours or more

In 1987, the government’s Economic Council came up with a “guideline for structural adjustment”, known as the New Maekawa Report. It was compiled as Japan’s international pledge to limit the number of hours workers can work to 1,800 a year. The report said, “It is necessary to limit annual working hours to 1,800 below U.S. and British levels, at the earliest possible time by 2000. The council’s report made this call in the face of growing international criticism that Japan’s excessively strong international competitiveness is made possible by extraordinarily long working hours.”

According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare’s Monthly Labor Survey of business establishments with 30 or more employees, the number of hours actually worked per year was 2,110 in 1985. It decreased to 2,052 in 1990, 1,910 in 1995, 1,859 in 2000, 1,829 in 2005, and 1,768 in 2009. It was 1,798 in 2010. Thus the total hours actually worked by the average Japanese worker has been reduced by 300 in the last quarter century to below a1,800 mark, after 10 years of delay from the target year, 2000, set by the government.

The 1,800 annual working hours means 35 hours per week for 52 weeks. As this includes paid holidays as well as holidays actually used, the Monthly Labor Survey is based on the average number of work days set at 228 (2010). This means that the average worker worked 8 hours per day and that if a worker works 8 hours every day without overtime, he or she will have worked 1,800 hours per year.

However, individual workers may not be able to feel that their actual working hours have decreased. On the contrary, many would complain that their workloads have increased.

A time use survey in the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry’s annual survey on how average people spend their time shows that there is no significant difference between 1976 and 2006 in the average weekly working hours for the average Japanese employee (full-time, man and woman). The same study also found that the average Japanese worker and the average full-time worker (man and woman) worked (in 2006) 9 to 10 hours longer than the average U.S. worker (2003) and that an increase in working hours on weekdays means reducing workers’ sleeping hours.

According to the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training (JLPT)’s data book on international comparison of labor situations, the average hours actually worked by a worker is 1,792 in Japan and 1,797 in the United States. But an analysis shows that Japanese full-time workers work 400 to 500 hours longer than U.S. workers. (See Chart 1 next page.)

Chart 1: Full-time workers’ working hours and sleeping hours in Japan and U.S.

JAPAN

	Year	1981	1986	1991	1996	2001	2006
Working hours	Men	52.17	53.44	52.17	51.94	51.56	53.32
	Women	46.54	44.65	43.97	43.30	42.09	44.52
Sleeping hours	Men	55.73	54.23	53.49	53.40	52.91	52.45
	Women	52.71	51.64	50.99	51.21	50.91	50.58

UNITED STATES

	Year	1975	1985	1993	2003
Working hours	Men	41.77	41.19	44.01	42.92
	Women	34.52	32.02	36.34	36.18
Sleeping hours	Men	55.27	53.92	55.68	56.58
	Women	56.77	54.61	56.92	58.18

（Source）KURODA Sachiko “Japanese People’s Working Hours−Focusing on how working conditions changed during the 20 years after the introduction of shorter workweek policy”
(“REITI Policy Discussion Paper Series 10-P-002,” January 2010)

Why has the number of hours actually worked come down below the 1,800 level? The answer is that it has to do with an increase in the number of part-time and other shorter-hour contingent workers. As far as regular full-time workers are concerned, Japan is the worst of all developed countries in terms of working hours.

How many hours does the average regular full-time worker work a year in Japan? The Labor Ministry’s 2006 survey on how people spend their time found that the average male regular full-time worker works 52.5 hours per week, or 2,730 hours per year, which shows little change from the average 2,719 hours for all workers in the 1950s. The Employment Status Survey (2007) by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry shows that out of 23,810,000 male employees who work more than 250 days per year, 13,630,000 (51.8%) work more than 49 hours per week and that 25% work more than 60 hours. This shows that Japanese workers’ overwork is still in a serious situation. (See Chart 2 below.)

Chart 2 Rate of male regular full-time workers who work 250 days or more per year (%)

Age group	Number of full-time workers who work 250 days or more a year	Number of full-time workers who work 49 hour or more a week	%	Number of full-time workers who work 60 hour or more a week	%	Number of full-time workers who work 65 hour or more a week	%
Total	13,628,600	7,053,300	51.8	3,410,300	25.0	1,700,800	12.5
15〜19	94,100	38,800	41.2	13,700	14.6	3,800	4.0
20〜24	807,500	430,000	53.3	198,200	24.5	96,500	12.0
25〜29	1,583,600	897,900	56.7	457,400	28.9	242,400	15.3
30〜34	2,158,100	1,232,700	57.1	630,800	29.2	327,600	15.2
35〜39	2,103,800	1,203,600	57.2	613,600	29.2	316,500	15.0
40〜44	1,781,600	992,300	55.7	485,900	27.3	237,600	13.3
45〜49	1,575,700	801,000	50.8	380,700	24.2	190,900	12.1
50〜54	1,456,900	666,300	45.7	295,600	20.3	139,900	9.6
55〜59	1,505,800	595,100	39.5	250,700	16.6	105,500	7.0
60〜64	398,500	143,800	36.1	61,300	15.0	28,200	7.1

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Statistics Bureau “The 2007 Employment Status Survey”; MORIOKA Koji : Dual Structure and Bipolarization of Work Time (The Journal of Ohara Institute for Social Research, No. 627, January 2011 issue, Page 14).

2. What makes Japanese people work longer hours?

According to ILO data, the percentage of workers whose working hours exceed 50 hours per week is higher in Japan than in any other developed country, even higher than the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, where neo-liberal labor practices are prevalent.

An increase in the percentage of workers who work longer than 60 hours per week is what the labor situation in Japan in the mid 1990s is about. The percentage of male workers in their late 30s and early 40s, who worked longer than 60 hours, rose about five percentage points. A worker who worked more than 60 hours a week is more likely to die from overwork, known as karoshi. One out of 4 or 5 workers exceeds this critical line. What an extraordinary situation this is!

This long-hours culture can be explained primarily by long working hours imposed by employers in working regulations. In addition, overtime work is common practice nowadays and management often makes financial plans by taking it for granted that workers usually do not use all of allotted paid leave. This way of capital accumulation is made possible also by inadequate labor law regulations and dysfunctional labor administration, as well as weak trade union power to impose social regulations on labor relations.

The main reason for long overtime work being imposed on workers is a shortage of workers. The Research Institute for Advancement of Living Standards (JTUC)’s “Questionnaire Survey on Work and Life of Workers” (conducted in October 2010) found: 43.1% of the respondents said they work overtime when they need to do unexpected assignment; 39.8% cited a shortage of hands; and 31.1% said their work schedules include overtime work from the beginning.

Why are Japanese workers forced to work so many hours of overtime? The Labor Standards Law’s Article 32 provides for the 40-hour week and the 8-hour day. But the law’s Article 36 makes it possible to make employees to do overtime work or holiday work if there is a labor agreement to have employees work more than 40 hours a week or more than 8 hours a day. A considerable number of firms represented by the chairman and vice-chairmen of the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), who are supposed to be most responsible for complying with the law, have labor agreements allowing workers to be forced to work around 1,000 hours of overtime work per year. (See Chart 3 on Page 4.) Needless to say, unions that agreed to such overtime arrangements are also responsible for the Article 36 provision.

Forced overtime work without pay is also too big a problem to ignore. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry’s Labor Standards Bureau publishes an annual report on how employers paid for overtime work after they received the ministry’s guidance. It should be noted that regular Labor Standards Bureau inspections only cover fewer than 10 percent of the business establishments. In most cases, employers would in back pay for unpaid overtime work only after they were asked to correct their inappropriate labor practice based on workers’ complaints filed with the bureau and only when the amount of overtime pay due is 1 million yen or more. In other words, these are only a tip of the iceberg. Yet the total amount paid for unpaid overtime work was more than 12.3 billion yen in 2010 (*).

(*) The figure reached 27.4 million yen in 2007, immediately before the Lehman Brothers collapse. It was 8.1 billion yen. It may not be coincidental that the amounts of payments of forced overtime work increased along with the rising call for the introduction of “white collar exemption.”

In Japan, the number of annual paid holiday is very small. What is more, the rate of their use of paid holidays is extremely low. This also contributes to making working hours longer. Since 1995, the number of paid holidays provided to workers has been unchanged at 17 or 18. Paid holidays actually used in 1995 accounted for 55.2%. The rate dropped below 50% in 2001 and to 46.6% in 2007. It has been unchanged since then. Reasons that most respondents gave for not using all of their paid holidays in a survey were that there is an atmosphere in the workplace that makes workers feel difficult to use their paid holidays and that it is actually difficult to make work arrangements for taking a holiday. This shows that, unlike in Europe where employers are well aware of their rights to paid holiday, production or any other business plans are not made on the premise that the workers have the right to use their paid holidays..

In assessing work and life, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that many workers also have to take a very long travel time to work. They go home late at night after work, making it difficult for male workers to participate in house chores or child care. Male workers who go home before 8:00pm after work account for 80% in Stockholm and about 50% in Paris, but only 20% in Tokyo (Tsutsui Haruhiko “Decent Working Time to Become a Country Leading the Shorter Work Day”−in Japanese).

The excessively long working hours and excessively heavy workloads are what Japan is about. This state of workers has no parallel in other developed countries. It is a hotbed for karoshi (deaths from overwork) and overwork-induced suicides. We cannot afford to further delay the correction of the practice of long working hours. It is essential to have the employers to comply with the Labor Standards Law and the Industrial Safety and Health Law. It is also important to increase the number of personnel for labor administration and give labor administration authorities greater powers. These are necessary for discouraging employers from refusing to comply with the laws and from circumventing the law. Unions are called upon to put up a real and serious struggle for shorter work hours. Their social value will be tested.

Chart 3: Outline of arrangements in labor-management agreements on overtime work at companies led by CEOs who are chairman or vice chairmen of the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren)

Companies	Date of coming into force	Maximum number of hours permitted for overtime workType of worker representation				Type of worker representation
		Day	Month	3 months	Year
Canon, Inc.	2008/8/29	15	90	−	1080	Union
Toyota Motor Corp.	2008/8/24	8	80	−	720	Union
Nippon Steel Corp	2008/3/6	8	100	−	700	Union
Nippon Oil Corporation	2008/3/31	−	100	−	480	Union
Mitsubishi Corporation	2008/3/26	5	43	−	360	Union
Panasonic Corporation	2008/3/31	13.75	100	−	841	Union
Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company	2008/3/26	−	45	−	360	<Unreadable>
Mitsui & Co., Ltd	2008/3/26	12.75	120	−	920	Union
Toray Industries, Inc.	2008/9/29	−	160	−	1600	Union
Mizuho Financial Group, Inc.	2008/8/31	11	90	−	900	Employees' representatives
Hitachi, Ltd.	2008/3/26	13	−	400	960	Union
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.	2008/3/31	13.5	−	240	720	Union
Nomura Holdings, Inc.	2008/3/21	8	104	−	360	Employees' representatives
All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd.	2008/3/31	7	30	−	320	Union
Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd.	2008/3/31	4.5	90	−	360	Union
Tokyo Electric Power Company	2008/9/26	12h10min.	100	−	390	Union

Kabunushi (Share holders) Ombudsman in October 2008 requested the Labor Bureau to disclose information regarding overtime and holiday work agreements between labor and management and employment of people with disability at 16 companies, which are represented at the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) either as chairman or vice chairman. The NPO ombudsman took this step in order to know these companies’ compliance with labor laws. (Source) Kabunushi (Share holders) Ombudsman, 2009

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Recent Rodo-soken activities

September 5: Rodo-soken publishes the first of Rodo-soken Booklet Series, “Research Tour of France and Britain on Work Rules and Social Services”
October 5: Rodo-soken published its second of Rodo-soken Booklet Series, “Major Disaster and Japan’s Social Services−A though on post-disaster efforts to restore jobs, living conditions, and communities”
November 5: Rodo-soken Project “Toward Humane Work and Living Conditions” holds its open seminar
November 30: Rodo-soken publishes the third of its Booklet Series “Movement to Make Public Contracts
Ensure Proper Wages and Working Conditions”

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