Emiko Teranishi, who founded a group for "karoshi" victims' families after her husband, a chef, died of overwork. A survey of 10,000 companies published in Japan's first white paper on "karoshi," released this month, found that in 2015 alone, 93 suicides and attempted suicides were officially recognized as overwork deaths and eligible for compensation and 96 deaths from heart attacks, strokes and other illnesses were linked to overwork. (AP)
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There is growing recognition that efforts to curb overwork are failing and that the pressure increasingly is affecting younger workers.
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smithinjapan
"efforts to curb overwork are failing" is a pretty good euphemism for simply "the laws are not being enforced or even encouraged by the government and police", or better yet, "the government, police, and companies are breaking the laws, and are ruining society and taking lives".
But no... keep it at "efforts to curb" things, like it's a volunteer service.
Aly Rustom
Oh really? Ya think?
MsDelicious
If he was a chef and died from overwork I cannot fathom what his food must have tasted like or the presentation.
Perhaps the term chef here is being used for a manager of a McDonald's of which all their managers are on overtime kill.
katsu78
In post-industrial economies, working employees to exhaustion is counter-productive because most jobs in post-industrial economies require creative thinking, adaptability, and attention to detail. None of which is someone who is trying to get by on 4 hours of sleep going to be that effective in. Unfortunately, it seems most Japanese management operates in a pre-Industrial mindset, where forcing employees to toil endlessly is seen as equivalent to producing value.
You can tell things aren't going to change as long as managers are comfortable skirting the line. They don't truly care about their employees' quality of life or if they're rested enough to think fast on their feet, otherwise they wouldn't keep coming right up to the point of karoshi. They just are afraid of looking bad when they tip over the point and make the papers.