Harsh Working Environment in Japan

I've said for many years that the language barrier is a major factor in keeping Japanese workers from earning pay in global markets that's more commensurate with their abilities. If more Japanese workers were more competitive for global jobs, there would be more pressure on Japanese companies to improve their working environments and compensation. But there was the Bubble and the domestic focus of Japanese companies to distract.

Unfortunately, many other nations have become very competitive in English proficiency now. 1980s-2010s was the period to build an English-proficient workforce and enjoy the economic benefits (as my country Singapore did decades ago).

Keep trying to apply for jobs in companies or countries with better working cultures.

Regarding my work experience. I have worked in the US for many years for large companies and small. I have never worked for a Japanese company.

Some US companies pay lip service to the idea the company is one big family. I was never under illusion that management viewed me and other workers as nothing more than cogs in the machine.

Early in my career I must have had a “kick me” sign strapped to me. I put up with a lot of nonsense. Working nights and weekends. As I worked in tech, I refused to stay late in the office but I was working remotely from home the whole time. I still remember my infant son wanting to sit in my lap while I was troubleshooting a Sev1 outage.

I was also pressured to do unethical if not illegal things. One time I said no and my boss’ boss and his boss literally screamed at me for a week.

Anyways. That is water under the bridge. Today I work from home. My boss also works from home in a different part of the country. We meet in person maybe three times a year. I refuse to manage anyone; being a manager IMO is trying to glue the executives unhinged view to reality. It is impossible.

Today, I created a role for myself where I am like an internal solutions architect. I create working proofs of concepts with sanitized real data. After I show how it is done, I turn it over to the developers to implement and maintain. I still have to deal with politics and unhinged personalities. As I have some credibility, I get to back out of projects when I had my fill of political operatives. They then complain I am no longer on the project.

Just to give the opposite experience from a different place: as a marketing professional in New York City, I've worked in small businesses, start ups, big businesses, as a freelancer, and owning my own ad agency.

Ive basically never worked more than 40 hours in a week, or worked a weekend (beyond rarely answering an email). It hasn't impacted my ability to succeed, and I've earned a high income for a long time. I also get really good results for clients.

So it can be much better elsewhere.

Also, if you have to use English for work, you can use ChatGPT to help you translate to English. One of my employees in the Phillipines has become a lot more effective since she started using chatgpt to help her communications.

Not to sugarcoat or downplay the struggle, but on the bright side - i don't know other countries where "made in <...>" really mean something. Only Japan. Not even Germany anymore.

Well, I live in Finland, and I've only ever worked in software here. It's pretty much the opposite of Japan, and I think there are some good ways and some bad ways in which that happens.

What I believe is that making more money buys more options. Japan's actual GDP per capita is surprisingly low for a country with such a strong and well educated population. Working conditions would probably improve significantly there if that number doubled or tripled overnight, because of the second order effects: A lot of people would be willing, at least now and then, to leave the extra money on the table in exchange for e.g. not working 80 hour weeks. Anyone who tells you the opposite has not thought hard enough about what making more money really means.

Finland's GDP per capita is surprisingly strong by the same token for a country with such aggressive taxation policies, and no "game breaking" natural resources. (Norway has oil and they are absolutely loaded. Sweden doesn't, but they have neoliberalized a lot since the 1970s.) A few factors which really help this: Finnish people have sky high English proficiency, especially in engineering, and aiming from the start at an international or at the very least EU-wide market is the norm here for tech companies. The Finnish market is only 5 million people, and firms really do just make much more money and much better products when markets are large enough for them to specialize.

I suspect Japanese companies might be caught in a strange middle-market-size trap where the ~100 million population is just large enough that few companies truly feel the need to aim internationally, but in practice it is actually a quite small economy in the modern world to have as your only home base.

I live in Germany. It's very relaxed. I help immigrants move here and I have to encourage them to take sick leave and ignore their emails outside of office hours.

What about China? Our software developers often have to work 12 hours a day, six days a week. I think people working in East Asia share the same feeling.

How do you want to change thinking towards those problems of a whole nation? It's not like "it's the company doing it" - it's japanese people doing this to their own people. So this would be were to start.

.. uprising workers are needed here. New thinking towards well-being of employees must be adapted. Without a social overthrow, I think, it's impossible to change such system.

Or, you found an company yourself and do it differently, addressing the very each problems and market yourself, so that everyone is fighting to be with your company and you as the boss.

So you see, it's near to impossible. One can't wish for uprising, as it won't be happening. One can't wish for change of the Japanese society. It won't be happening as long traditional thinking is still state of the art.

May be in 30y when there's a new generation of managers who think like you and are keen to to different.

Good luck my friend from Japan! Greetings from Germany.

In case you really want to know and still didn't Google it:

On Germany/Europe, we have strong laws for employees. That's a big part of the working culture over here, as each of the employees know about and have the chance to exercise his/her rights given by law. For example , the working day is defined as 8h + 30mins of break. If you're about to work longer, then you get better money/compensation for it. There's a strong law for recreational times/vacation, where each one oughta get min. 24d of payed off-time. There are laws saving employees from mobbing, and if it happens, it's easy to sue because of the employees rights. And so on...

So, urge your legislation to pass such laws as a start. With the time, everyone gets accommodated to this and everything will change for the good.

Wish you success.

I've heard that in Japan it is appreciated to stay in the office long hours but not actually doing a productive work. Is this true?

You haven't experienced Korea yet.