Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was yesterday to spend the afternoon meditating while staff at some of the country’s biggest firms also quit work early — in time for a bit of shopping or maybe a boozy train ride.
Welcome to Premium Friday, Japan’s latest bid to tackle two perennial problems — sluggish consumer spending and notoriously long working hours blamed for a national health crisis known as karoshi, or death from overwork.
The work-life balance campaign, which launches this week, calls on employers to let staff off at about 3pm on the last Friday of every month.
Photo: AP
Warning: Excessive consumption of alcohol can damage your health
Major firms, such as automakers Nissan Motor Co and Toyota Motor Corp, beverage giant Suntory Holdings Co and brokerage Nomura Holdings Inc, are taking part in the government-backed scheme.
Thousands of other firms are offering promotions to workers who will have a bit of extra time on Fridays.
Mobile carrier Softbank Group Corp is letting staff quit early and, later this year, will be putting an extra ￥10,000 (US$88.77) in their pockets.
One railway operator is offering a special train ride with beer and lunch boxes, while off-early workers can also get discounts on everything from matchmaking services to cancer checks.
Abe was scheduled to take it down a notch by spending the afternoon at a Zen meditation temple, followed by a music concert, said Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who was also kicking off early — as soon as yesterday’s news briefing was done.
“Unfortunately, I have to hold this press conference at your request,” he told reporters in Tokyo. “But as soon as I’m done with this, I’m going to doing something” for Premium Friday.
Every year, Japan’s notoriously long working hours are blamed for hundreds of deaths due to strokes, heart attacks and suicides, along with a host of serious health problems.
The issue was highlighted again in late December last year, when the head of Japan’s biggest advertising agency, Dentsu Inc, resigned in response to the suicide of a young employee who regularly logged more than 100 hours of overtime each month.
More than one in five Japanese companies have employees who work such long hours they are at serious risk of death, according to a government survey released in October last year.
Japan’s long working hours spawned the image of the weary salaryman who worked all day, drank with the boss all night and was back at his desk early in the morning.
That punishing work culture has softened over the decades, but putting in long hours is still seen as a sign of dedication at many Japanese firms.
“We’re hoping to boost spending by changing our lifestyle, the way we work and the way we think,” said Masanao Ueda, director of the Industrial Policy Bureau at major business lobby Japan Business Federation. “It’s hard for Japanese workers to take a day off, so we need to create conditions in which everyone can take a holiday.”
However, it could be hard sell. Many Japanese employees do not even take all of their regular annual leave and firms are not helping with the needed wage hikes.
And only a small fraction of Japan’s firms are taking part in the nonmandatory scheme.
“This campaign will not suddenly boost spending or stop long working hours,” Tokyo-based NLI Research Institute analyst Naoko Kuga said. “It’s not even mandatory for workers to leave early.”
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
RSS