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Hanaori san

Starting Tuesday, the labor ministry will stop universally urging companies to cap employees’ overtime at 45 hours per month, while taking measures to ensure workers’ health. 

The move, which was announced earlier this month following requests from business lobbies calling for more flexibility in work styles, has left many wondering: Is Japan backpedaling on its work-style reforms? 

The question is a pertinent one, particularly in a nation led by a workaholic prime minister. Sanae Takaichi, who pledged to “work, work, work, work and work” in her post-election speech in October and has recently drawn fire for boasting about sleeping “zero to three hours” per night, has sought to ease overtime limits to help solve Japan’s labor shortages and to drive economic growth.

Takaichi has taken the initiative on what some are calling “work more reform,” saying changes should be made “on the premise that the physical and mental well-being of employees is maintained and that (overtime) is a choice made by them.”

Rengo, the nation’s largest labor lobby, called the announcement earlier this month by the labor ministry “extremely regrettable.”

A group of lawyers representing karōshi (death from overwork) victims has also released a statement, strongly protesting the move and calling it “a gross affront to the work-style reform, which the government and the labor ministry have pushed for.”

The group pointed to the karōshi statistics announced last month, which showed that the number of compensation requests for work-induced deaths and illnesses reached a record 6,212 in fiscal 2025, up by 1,402 from the previous year. 

“In Japanese workplaces today, overwork and stress rob workers of health and even life,” the group said.

Japan, which was once notorious for long working hours, has implemented a series of changes to address karōshi and overwork-related illnesses over the years. 

The nation’s 2018 work-style reform act, which went into effect in 2019, capped overtime in principle at 45 hours per month and 360 hours per year, on condition that labor and management sign a so-called 36 Agreement. Before the 2018 law, there was no cap on overtime as long as the agreement was reached.

In addition, the law stipulates that, if labor and management agree to a “special clause” in a 36 Agreement, workers can work overtime of up to 100 hours in a month, an average of 80 hours per month over two to six months and 720 hours per year.

A survey of about 50,000 people released in June by the Recruit Works Institute showed that the percentage of workers putting in overtime of 45 hours or more has steadily declined over the years, to just 7.3% of full-time employees and 5.1% of all workers in 2025, down from 13.6% and 9.5%, respectively, in 2016. 

OECD statistics show that Japan’s working hours stood at 1,651 hours per year in 2021, which is shorter than 1,773 hours in the U.S. and is roughly on par with 1,625 hours in Britain, while they are longer than France’s 1,401 hours and Germany’s 1,295 hours.

Until now, labor standards inspection offices have called on companies to limit overtime to 45 hours or less, even when labor and management agreed to the special clause. 

In a meeting of a labor ministry panel discussing labor market reform in April, an official from the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), a lobby of small and midsize business owners, argued that the labor standards inspection offices should not try to limit overtime to 45 hours at businesses where the special clause had been agreed, saying such actions lacked legal transparency and were stifling business activities.

The JCCI also released a survey of 1,724 member firms across Japan in May that showed more than 70% of those surveyed hoped for more flexible rules so they could handle unexpected or seasonal spikes in business.

Furthermore, some members in the hospitality industry said the overtime cap was causing a decline in service quality and customer satisfaction, while others in the transportation sector reported lost sales opportunities. Manufacturers said that, due to the overtime cap, they had to delay product delivery, which led to the loss of business.

A labor ministry official denied that the latest policy change contradicts the government’s stance to promote work-life balance.

“Even if companies allow workers to put in more than 45 hours of overtime, we will continue to check if they are taking measures to ensure workers’ health and prevent health issues from overwork,” said Kunihiro Nishiumi, director of the inspection division at the ministry’s labor standards bureau. 

Nishiumi added that the ministry will pay close attention to how companies using the special clause are taking specific health-ensuring measures agreed in advance with labor representatives and reported to the labor bureau. Employers must choose to take at least one of 10 steps, such as giving workers enough time to rest between shifts and arranging for a worker whose overtime exceeds certain hours to meet with a doctor.

Kazutaka Kobara, senior economist at NLI Research Institute, said it’s unlikely Japan’s businesses will immediately revert to the old days, when overtime was considered a virtue and a condition for promotion. He finds the policy change “reasonable,” saying it adds flexibility to working styles.

“The current regulations that limit overtime to 360 hours per year in principle and 720 hours in special cases won’t change, so I think the move is understandable,” he said.

But he expressed concern about whether employees can really choose to work more or will be forced to, considering Japan’s corporate culture that values conformity.

“It’s easy to say workers can choose to work more if they want to, but the question remains on how autonomous such choices are,” he said.

Unlike in some European countries, Japan has no laws that ensure workers’ rights to disconnect, and the awareness of “inter-work interval systems,” requiring a certain amount of rest time, remains low.

The 2018 work-style reform obliged companies to “make best efforts” to create work-interval systems, but the obligation carries no penalties.

A 2025 labor ministry survey found that only 6.9% of 3,820 companies surveyed replied that they had work intervals in place, as opposed to 78.7% that replied that they were not planning or considering work intervals. 

Despite being written into the law, 15.7% of the surveyed businesses said they didn’t know what work intervals were, up from 14.7% the year before.

“There are many people in management who have never thought about concepts such as the right to disconnect or work intervals,” Kobara said. “I think management, including mid-level managers, should be made more aware.”

https://x.com/AoihakuR/status/2094008928623530045

Sumber : Amane sensei