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Panasonic Wants Employees To Relax, Limits Work Days To 11 hours (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the interesting-changes dept.

Japan is notorious for its long working hours, which have been blamed for a national health crisis known as "karoshi" -- death from overwork. From a report on CNET: Panasonic hopes to curb this, instructing its 100,000-ish employees to work no later than 8 p.m. each day, reports Asahi Shimbun. This hour reduction still enables a 55-hour working week, but the directive from Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga also limited overtime to 80 hours a month.

1 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Only? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Japanese put in a lot of hours, but not much of that is "working". Japan's productivity is only 60% of America's. There is a social taboo to leave work before your boss, so people stay late and surf the web. The bosses are promoted based on seniority rather than ability, and are often incompetent with no incentive to take the initiative on more enlightened working conditions. It is better to just stick to prevailing social conventions and keep a low profile.

    America: The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
    Japan: The nail that sticks up will be hammered back down.