WHY JAPANESE EMPLOYEES WORK SO LONG

1.Working Hours of Japanese Employees Are...

As is expected, the Japanese work the most hours among those five countries. Also this report indicates that German people work the least. But, this does not mean that people in my country are industrious and Germans are lazy. I suppose, for example, the result of the lowest number of working hours in Germany stems from the developed social securities such as a pension for the retired, the influencing power of labor unions and the long vacation. I just envy the Germans.

To make it worse, it is known that Japanese employees actually stay in their offices and factories longer than the officially reported number of hours, say up to 2300 to 2400 hours. (The employees somehow hesitate to answer when asked about such a large number of hours.) This implies that Japanese stay at work approximately 400 hours longer than workers in the United States, which becomes as much as 60 day a year if they work seven hours a day !!

I understand that my country is often criticized by the western countries because these long working hours may have enabled the outstanding economic progress in the 1980's. The word "workaholic" seems to be invented for Japanese people.

Why do Japanese people work so hard, so long? Do Japanese like to work? Is it a tradition? Should we improve the present situation? Here, I'd like to write about the reason for that, not from the economic point of view, but just from my own experiences and observations in my everyday life.

But I don't think all of these aspects are negative, and I don't want to write about my country with a critical eye in such a way that something is not good and should be corrected immediately. I am just going to try to describe it in English so that foreigners can understand what happens in Japanese offices. It may be meaningful and important, I think, in this case to write in English for foreign people because I have to explain without the tacit understanding, which we Japanese share. It is also interesting to me that I am writing this while I am staying in the U.S., looking back on my country from abroad. I am hoping that this leads to quite an objective description of my country.

2.The Case of Mr. Tanaka Is...

Mr. Tanaka works from Monday to Friday and his workday last from 9:00 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. He doesn't work Saturday. Working five days a week has been introduced in many companies and offices these past ten years, following the example of the United States. I know that there are still, however, many small businesses where employees have to work six days a week, which leads to the amount of 50 hours a week even in their regular time.

Mr. Tanaka usually works seven to nine hours overtime every week. (This overtime is the national average.) So, he works approximately 45 hours per week, which implies that he stays at his office until seven o'clock in the evening every day. Many of the male employees, except in factories and stores, somehow never leave their offices at the regular quitting time, but tend to stay another couple of hours even without urgent jobs to finish that day.

This number of weekly working hours in the case of Mr. Tanaka doesn't result in the surprisingly large amount of yearly hours, as far as he has many weeks of holidays in a year. One of these causes for working so long is, I think, fewer actual holidays than those in the countries quoted at the beginning.

3.Japanese Students also Work a Lot.

Japanese kids have to attend school as many as 240 days every year, while kids in the U.S.A. go to school only 180 days, (It is interesting to note that this difference, 60 days a year, happens to coincide with the difference in working days between the two countries.) Going to school on Saturday is just a usual thing to Japanese students (but they only attend in the morning on Saturday), while American students can't imagine that. Therefore, the weekend starts Saturday afternoon for Japanese kids, while Americans enjoy the weekend from Friday evening.

Furthermore, believe it or not, most Japanese high school students go to private classes after school in order to receive supplementary lessons. Parents want this for their students so as not to fall behind the average in formal education in school in order to enter the prestigious high schools and universities. These extra lessons may correspond to overtime work often observed in Japanese companies.

Regarding the length of the summer holiday, the difference between both countries is unbelievable. The Japanese students have 40 days and American students have almost three months. My daughters may have found how great this difference is because they have had the experience of attending elementary schools in both countries. 　

　　　　 I admit Japanese kids get used to working so long as well as surviving in a competitive environment from their school days.

4.Holiday in Japan.

When I was asked how many weeks of vacation time the Japanese enjoy in summer, I replied that I couldn't answer in weeks but just by in days. Instead of talking long holidays in summer, we Japanese traditionally take holidays for the New Year around the turn of the year, and for the Bon Festival in mid-August.

And I should mention that there are many national holidays in my country ---- thirteen days a year! This is a gift to the dedicated workers from the government .We have a wonderful week in spring called Golden Week, in which there are three different national holidays and May Day. It is not a coincidence that Golden Week is in the best season for recreation and outdoor life at the height of spring. No doubt the government supplements vacations for the Japanese workers.

5. Why Do They Work So Long?

I think that most Japanese may agree that Japanese are very industrious by nature, that working hard itself is praised as a good deed in Japanese society. It is a good tradition, not a thing to be blamed. Industrious people have created an industrial nation

Another thing is that they work overtime just because they want to earn more money. The monthly income of employees in many Japanese companies and governmental offices is actually supplemented by such overtime allowances. It is really true that a strong Japanese wife never welcomes her husband who returns home from his office at the regular time in the evening, but expects him to work overtime. To tell the truth about myself, when I used to work for the construction company, I remember feeling happy to get the extra pay (sometimes about 1000 dollars by working overtime 50 hours a month.)

Another serious reason is that many companies encourage the competitive spirit to the employed. Each employee is driven to achieve a better job than another employee for a successful promotion. To the employed and even their wives in such a company, a big concern is who is in the higher position. In this case, employees often never take overtime allowances to their companies.

6.Quite Recently Japan Is...

But an interesting thing is that the government and the Ministry of Labor are even more eager to reduce the large number of working hours. Japanese workers still don't pay much attention to such an issue. The Government quite recently has announced as a goal that the working hours should be reduced to 1810 hours a year within the year of 1992. I am not sure how they have figured out such a number of hours, but it is obvious that this announcement has been made from a political point of view in order to respond to the critics from overseas.

7.Concluding Remarks

The problem is that that employees are still much concerned with the companies' achievements and shares as well as their own promotion rather than the happiness in their families. These may be the consequences of the fact that the group identity and the spirit of cooperation and self-sacrifice have been respected since their school days. In my long memory of the distant past, nothing is remembered about the importance of individuality, independence and self- expression. And, it seems to be strange that it is not workers themselves but the Ministry of Labor who positively initiated the reduction of working days.

It is really an appropriate time when Japanese employees should turn their attention from their jobs to their everyday lives and families.