Japan yesterday launched a scheme to promote “telework,” or working from home, in an effort to ease congestion when Tokyo hosts the 2020 Olympics, as well as soften a notoriously rigid work culture.
Almost 930 companies, including Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd, Ajinomoto Co and Tokyu Construction Co are participating in “Telework Day,” to be held on July 24 each year from now until the Olympics opening ceremony, which is set for July 24, 2020.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has introduced policies to shorten working hours, raise contract workers’ pay, and curb abuse of labor laws.
Telework could be another way to reform working practices that some say are behind the times.
“Once the Olympics start it will be hard to get to work, so we are doing this as an experiment,” Ricoh Institute of Sustainability and Business president Takashi Kozu, 61, said. “The lifestyles of younger generations are changing, so firms should offer alternative work styles to maintain employees’ incentive.”
Kozu said he worked from home yesterday morning, planned to attend an off-site meeting in the afternoon and would not show up in the office until early evening.
Telework is more common in other countries, especially in the information technology sector, where employees regularly use teleconferencing or log on from the neighborhood cafe.
However, it has been slow to catch on in other industries in Japan, partly because firms have put a lot of emphasis on being physically present at the office, often for 12 hours or more.
However, Japan Inc is starting to change its ways and introduce more flexible work hours. As the population ages, the labor force is shrinking at an alarming rate, and a hard-driving work culture makes it difficult to attract and retain workers.
Some companies are starting to realize that long, inflexible hours of work actually keep labor productivity low.
In some cases Japan’s working culture can be fatal, and it is not uncommon for workers to commit suicide or suffer a stroke because of excessive hours.
“We are doing this for the Olympics, but the long-term goal is to have more humane working conditions,” said Hiroshi Ohnishi, a planner at the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, which is promoting “Telework Day.”
“In the past, working long hours was considered a virtue, but this thinking will not hold up in the future,” he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group