*As businesses struggle to find staff, safeguards meant to end Japan’s punishing work culture are being reconsidered.*
*Erica Yokoyama for Bloomberg News*
Behind the latticed wooden doors of a traditional inn in Kyoto, proprietor Hiroya Shimizu is scrambling. The 15-room Ryokan Gion Yoshi-ima, tucked in a lantern-lit alley in a historic district of the city, has been solidly booked for months. Between handling guest check-ins, making beds and arranging authentic local cuisine, Shimizu is desperate for more staff to help maintain the property’s old-world standards.
He wishes he could ask his 25 employees to work extra hours and knows some are eager to pad their paychecks. But he says his hands are tied by regulations that limit overtime — even as the streets outside bustle with a record influx of tourists.
“We’re chronically short-staffed,” says Shimizu, whose family has run Gion Yoshi-ima for four generations. “There are various limits on overtime, so I have to operate within those rules.”
The rules, though, may soon change. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, amid frustration among business owners like Shimizu, has ordered a review of Japan’s working-hour regulations that typically restrict overtime to 45 hours a month and 360 hours a year.
Once synonymous with a punishing work culture, Japan sought to rein in excessive overtime with legislation limiting monthly and annual work hours that came into force in 2019. The conservative leader swept to power in October pledging to revitalize the country’s stagnant economy, casting her plan as a way to hand back agency to workers and businesses while easing labor shortages in a shrinking population.
I started thinking like Japanese prefer becoming slaves to their own rich rather than living a comfortable life accepting foreign workers and increasing productivity…
Why are they interested in becoming a slave country this much I don’t know. They have wages lower than Europe with working conditions worse than USA. Maybe only China/Taiwan and Korea is worse than them. And fyi they still pay better compared to living costs in their country…
So far I feel like They will soon also lose to Vietnam and Malaysia. It will take a bit time but I guess even Indonesia would catch up with them soon. Thailand is almost on par nowadays if you are well educated…
Funny part is that at the end it will affect their birth rates much worse… Then I think they will beg for immigrants but due to even worse economy they won’t even be able to attract them…
TakaIka83 on
You’re not going to solve a labour shortage by literally working people to death. It’s dismaying that things like this even need to be pointed out in the modern age.
kjbbbreddd on
While the US is shaped by massive corporate lobbying, Japan is in the same boat. Big corps lobby hard on labor regs, pressuring politicians on foreign labor and other issues to keep them on a leash. Voter sentiment and actual labor laws don’t always line up. It’s a bad take to act like the whole of Japan is just gunning for slavery.
hatabou_is_a_jojo on
Why not just hire part timers, paid by the hour, for the busy hours required?
magentasunsetter on
Japan has world-leading animation studios and they are paying less than animators in other countries. Studios still close down. Bosses still have to evade tax to make the business viable.
In Japan, the middle man takes almost all the money. This applies to every product imaginable. All agriculture, commodities, services, etc.
Salty_Loan on
Japanese be like “We are willing to work unpaid overtime until 10pm not being able to spend time with our partners and children and to have suicidal thoughts as long as there are no foreigners!”
Available-Ad4982 on
Overtime…Japan isn’t short on effort, it’s short on outcomes. The system is efficient at looking busy and compliant, not at producing results. You see it everywhere: a dozen police at a crime scene but unchecked speeding and noise at night; overstaffed trash centers while litter sits on the streets; endless meetings and paperwork in business with no real accountability. Unlimited overtime hid this for years by letting inefficiency live inside effort. Once hours were capped, the “labor shortage” appeared. It’s not that people won’t work, it’s that the system rewards presence over impact and harmony over responsibility. Nobody wants to talk about this because it disrupts harmony.
NetherRealmMK on
There soon won’t be enough Japanese left. If you want to tackle birth decline, GDP, immigration and work shortages. So stupid smh
tky_phoenix on
It’s facinating to see a labor market that is so tight with more job openings than people searching for work and yet demand does not drive up wages. This is where a proper and liquid labor market could work wonders as it would drive good workers to companies offering better comp & benefits and companies that still have toxic cultures and don’t pay well will suffer. Some of them will go out of business but that frees up resources for other companies.
That whole generalist approach and lifetime employment system prevents the free flow of labor. As a lifer who worked decades at company A in various departments and locations, you have a lot of value for that one company but very limited market value.
And let’s not forget, there is so much waste in companies here (and all companies over the world). So much work that keeps people busy but doesn’t generate any value. How about cutting those tasks, streamlining, automating and of course engaging your employees properly and you’ll see their productivity rise. It doesn’t necessarily take more hours. It depends on what they do with those hours.
DoomedKiblets on
LOL they did, really??? Been here two decades, they never fucking did. It’s a huge problem still.
11 Comments
*As businesses struggle to find staff, safeguards meant to end Japan’s punishing work culture are being reconsidered.*
*Erica Yokoyama for Bloomberg News*
Behind the latticed wooden doors of a traditional inn in Kyoto, proprietor Hiroya Shimizu is scrambling. The 15-room Ryokan Gion Yoshi-ima, tucked in a lantern-lit alley in a historic district of the city, has been solidly booked for months. Between handling guest check-ins, making beds and arranging authentic local cuisine, Shimizu is desperate for more staff to help maintain the property’s old-world standards.
He wishes he could ask his 25 employees to work extra hours and knows some are eager to pad their paychecks. But he says his hands are tied by regulations that limit overtime — even as the streets outside bustle with a record influx of tourists.
“We’re chronically short-staffed,” says Shimizu, whose family has run Gion Yoshi-ima for four generations. “There are various limits on overtime, so I have to operate within those rules.”
The rules, though, may soon change. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, amid frustration among business owners like Shimizu, has ordered a review of Japan’s working-hour regulations that typically restrict overtime to 45 hours a month and 360 hours a year.
Once synonymous with a punishing work culture, Japan sought to rein in excessive overtime with legislation limiting monthly and annual work hours that came into force in 2019. The conservative leader swept to power in October pledging to revitalize the country’s stagnant economy, casting her plan as a way to hand back agency to workers and businesses while easing labor shortages in a shrinking population.
[Read the full dispatch here.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-09/japan-rethinks-overtime-rules-as-labor-shortages-worsen?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2Nzk1OTIyNiwiZXhwIjoxNzY4NTY0MDI2LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUOEtQNEJLR0lGUTYwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJEMzU0MUJFQjhBQUY0QkUwQkFBOUQzNkI3QjlCRjI4OCJ9.zhQtcrfcyRrqeFX6XYal1EAGCW7xde_4Jyc0agHcSOw)
I started thinking like Japanese prefer becoming slaves to their own rich rather than living a comfortable life accepting foreign workers and increasing productivity…
Why are they interested in becoming a slave country this much I don’t know. They have wages lower than Europe with working conditions worse than USA. Maybe only China/Taiwan and Korea is worse than them. And fyi they still pay better compared to living costs in their country…
So far I feel like They will soon also lose to Vietnam and Malaysia. It will take a bit time but I guess even Indonesia would catch up with them soon. Thailand is almost on par nowadays if you are well educated…
Funny part is that at the end it will affect their birth rates much worse… Then I think they will beg for immigrants but due to even worse economy they won’t even be able to attract them…
You’re not going to solve a labour shortage by literally working people to death. It’s dismaying that things like this even need to be pointed out in the modern age.
While the US is shaped by massive corporate lobbying, Japan is in the same boat. Big corps lobby hard on labor regs, pressuring politicians on foreign labor and other issues to keep them on a leash. Voter sentiment and actual labor laws don’t always line up. It’s a bad take to act like the whole of Japan is just gunning for slavery.
Why not just hire part timers, paid by the hour, for the busy hours required?
Japan has world-leading animation studios and they are paying less than animators in other countries. Studios still close down. Bosses still have to evade tax to make the business viable.
In Japan, the middle man takes almost all the money. This applies to every product imaginable. All agriculture, commodities, services, etc.
Japanese be like “We are willing to work unpaid overtime until 10pm not being able to spend time with our partners and children and to have suicidal thoughts as long as there are no foreigners!”
Overtime…Japan isn’t short on effort, it’s short on outcomes. The system is efficient at looking busy and compliant, not at producing results. You see it everywhere: a dozen police at a crime scene but unchecked speeding and noise at night; overstaffed trash centers while litter sits on the streets; endless meetings and paperwork in business with no real accountability. Unlimited overtime hid this for years by letting inefficiency live inside effort. Once hours were capped, the “labor shortage” appeared. It’s not that people won’t work, it’s that the system rewards presence over impact and harmony over responsibility. Nobody wants to talk about this because it disrupts harmony.
There soon won’t be enough Japanese left. If you want to tackle birth decline, GDP, immigration and work shortages. So stupid smh
It’s facinating to see a labor market that is so tight with more job openings than people searching for work and yet demand does not drive up wages. This is where a proper and liquid labor market could work wonders as it would drive good workers to companies offering better comp & benefits and companies that still have toxic cultures and don’t pay well will suffer. Some of them will go out of business but that frees up resources for other companies.
That whole generalist approach and lifetime employment system prevents the free flow of labor. As a lifer who worked decades at company A in various departments and locations, you have a lot of value for that one company but very limited market value.
And let’s not forget, there is so much waste in companies here (and all companies over the world). So much work that keeps people busy but doesn’t generate any value. How about cutting those tasks, streamlining, automating and of course engaging your employees properly and you’ll see their productivity rise. It doesn’t necessarily take more hours. It depends on what they do with those hours.
LOL they did, really??? Been here two decades, they never fucking did. It’s a huge problem still.