One Japanese TV show showed an interesting topic. That is the living of the Greek. This TV reported that they finish working in the morning and they can spend the rest of the time enjoying something they want to do. Of course, we don’t know that this is the case, and I think only some of them do this. However, does Japanese have the image that Japanese work much longer than Europeans or Americans? In fact, ILO shows that among five developed countries (the US, England, German, French, and Japan) Japan has the longest time of yearly working in 2005. As this express, firstly, one of the characteristics of the Japanese working environment is the long working hour. Another is that the overtime work is common, and that people do not take paid holidays without hesitation. That is, Japanese work environment which can cause overwork death, karoushi, is different from that of Europeans or Americans.

As markets are being increasingly globalized, many Japanese companies employ foreigners. For instance, FAST RETAILING, UNIQLO, has the plan to employ 1050 people, 80% of the overall graduate recruitment in 2012. On top of that, Panasonic, in 2011, took 1100 people as the graduate recruitment and this is about 80 % of overall. In this way, the number of non-Japanese people who work in the Japanese work environment are certainly increasing now.

I think here is an interesting problem we will be faced with. The issue is that how Japanese companies are dealing with foreigners as their workers. In my opinion, Japanese firms have main 3 measures to deal with this situation. First, they apply this Japanese environment to foreigners. It means that foreigners may work much longer and will not take paid leave. Second, companies have the distinction between Japanese and non-Japanese workers, which maybe shows that Japanese workers still work in the severe environment and foreigners work as if they were spend relatively comfortable time working overseas. Third, the increase in non-Japanese workers changes the Japanese traditional work environment into the place similar to Greek one. This means that non-Japanese workers who have different way of thinking about the labor may destroy deep-rooted environment.

For example, how about Ritsumeikan? Do non-Japanese workers have some dissatisfaction about their work place? I don’t know that. Anyway, that Foreigners work in Japan or Japanese work environment has been gradually common. What do you think about this issue?

by Shinya Shimatani