When you have possibility to work in Japan (or Japanese based company in your country) you might be wondering what Japanese companies working conditions are?
If it is so, you could also be concerned about many hours working environment in Japanese companies.
In fact, “Karoushi (overwork death)” became huge social issue in Japan recently and Japanese people work hard comparing other counties people and we are required to have loyalty to our belonging companies.
In this article I’d like to explain below matters.
- Japanese people’s average working hours (2022)
- Which types of job overly worked or not (2022)
- How to avoid entering much overtime work company
After reading my article, I hope you well understand working hours in Japan and well imagine what kind of work life is upcoming in front of you and also avoid bad work condition Japanese company.
Let me introduce about myself.
I am Hiro from Tokyo, Japan, born and raised here.
I have working experience in Japanese companies (logistics and manufacturing) as an international sales for almost 10 years, so I well understand Japanese people’s work culture.
Japanese people’s average working hours
Japanese normal business person’s (regular worker) average working hours is 9 hours including overtime work.
I’d like to explain how I calculated to be 9 hours.
Regular working hours
In usual Japanese company, regular working hours is from 8:30-9:00 to 17:30-18:00 and there is 1 hour lunch break, so regular working hour is around 8 hours per day in average.
Average overtime working hours (2022)
However, monthly average overtime work in Japan is 22 hours in 2022 according to Doda, Japanese famous recruitment company website (I am afraid it is Japanese website).
22 hours per month means approximately 1 hour overtime work per day.
(If Saturday, Sunday and public holiday is deducted, around 20 days is the working day in Japan in one month and 22 hours overtime work can be divided to 20 days to be approximately 1.1 hour per day)
To sum up, average Japanese people’s working hours is 9 hours per day.
Of course, it depends on types of job you are engaging to.
For example, I am a international sales person in manufacturing company and my regular working hour is from 8:30 to 17:30 (8 hours) and I finish work around 18:00 everyday (10 hours overtime work per a month) which is less than average described above, so my working hour per day is 8 hours & 30 min per day.
Which types of job overly worked or not (2022)
Overtime work tendency is also different to which type of jobs you choose.
According to the same Doda website, little overtime work jobs listed are as follows.
Little overtime work jobs
- Secretary/Receptionist (10 hours)* monthly overtime work
- Beauty related jobs (10.4 hours)
- Sales assistant (11 hours)
- Pharmaceutical jobs (11.6 hours)
- Medical clerical assistant (12.2 hours)
- Financial clerical assistant (12.8 hours)
- Academic/Medical science liaison (12.9 hours)
- General clerical assistant (13.3 hours)
- Planning/Marketing clerical assistant (13.7 hours)
- Financial one-person sales (15.0 hours)
There are many clerical assistant jobs which have less overtime work, so if you hope less working hours you may choose above types of job.
In contrast, much overtime work jobs listed are as follows.
Much overtime work jobs
- Producer/Director/Planner for publishing, advertising, Web or film (37.1 hours)*monthly overtime work
- Business consultant (37.1 hours)
- Construction management (35.3 hours)
- Merchandise planing/Service planing (34 hours)
- Logistics service (31.1 hours)
- Product planing (29.0 hours)
- Design supervision/Construction management (28.9 hours)
- Assembly engineer (28.4 hours)
- Medical device manufacturing sales (28.1 hours)
- Game creater (Web/Mobile/Social) (28.1 hours)
If you wish to avoid overtime work in Japan, you shouldn’t choose above types of job/industry.
For instance, one of my friend works in famous business consulting company in Japan and he is working from 9:00 to 23:00-24:00 everyday and he seems always exhausted when I meet him, though his income is 3 times higher than mine.
How to avoid entering much overtime work company
Now you understand there are also less overtime work companies in Japan as well, and you seem interested in how to avoid entering much overtime work company.
Even if types of job/industry are the same, each company’s working condition is totally different.
Check job posting & internet information carefully
To choose good work condition companies, please carefully check job posting and internet information, which provide you the information of overtime work situation of each company before applying for job interview.
Average overtime work information is described in the most of job posting, so don’t miss it.
If average overtime work or overtime work fee is not clearly mentioned you’d better ask companies during interview.
It is not kind to hide the information and you possibly should avoid such companies if it is not shared openly.
Also internet information is important to check reputations whether company workers are satisfied to current company condition or not.
Other parts to be checked in job posting
There are other parts to check for job postings to decide whether you should apply a company or not and I’d like to tell some of them.
Job posting is posted for a long period or not
You need to carefully check whether a job posting which you are interested in is posted for a long period or not.
If it is long period appearing such as half a year or more, that company is not popular among Japanese or employees are quitting frequently due to bad working condition such as long hours working and then there is necessity of posting for a long period.
so you possibly should avoid applying such a long period posted jobs.
Hiring condition is too loose or not
If condition of hiring is loose (not strict at all) such as no academic background required, no age limitation or no experience required, that company’s working condition could be bad.
Some companies which exploit employees need more and more workers because it is high resignation rate,
so not much conditions are required for hiring nevertheless to get new using up employees soon.
If you find such job postings, you should be careful.
Income level is too high or not
Usually if income level is high it can be considered positively but it could possibly include overtime work fee as well and consequently you might be required much overwork daily
so please carefully check whether income level described in job posting is average or too high.
Some companies don’t specifically describe income’s breakdown, so you should be careful if income in job posting is too high.
Conclusion
In this article, I explained Japanese business person’s average working hours and hope you well understand conditions.
I wish you will have successful work experience in Japan or Japanese based company.
Thank you for reading my article till the end.
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