The Ministry of Health Welfare and Labor released the data for April to December 2015 that the number of companies who received warnings from the Labor Standards Bureau was 8,530 workplaces*.
Companies were those where there was suspicion that more than 100 hours of overtime were being worked, or there were cases of “karoshi” (death through overwork) due to working extremely long hours.
1.Companies receiving supervision: 8,530, of which 6,501 (76.2% overall) where in breach of the Labor Standards Act.
2.The major breaches were:
1) Illegal* Working Hours: 4,790 workplaces (56.2%)
Exceeding 100 hours a month: 2,860 workplaces (59.7%)
Exceeding 150 hours a month: 595 workplaces (12.4%)
Exceeding 200 hours a month: 120 workplaces (2.5%)
Exceeding 250 hours a month: 27 workplaces (0.6%)
2) Unpaid overtime: 813 workplaces (9.5%)
3. Major Health Disorder Prevention Guidance (including one company that received an order to make improvements to protect the health of their employees)
1) Insufficient measures to prevent health issues due to overwork: 6,971 workplaces (81.7%)
Overtime outside the workplace exceeds 80 hours: 5,167 workplaces (74.1%)
2) Insufficient understanding or measurement of working hours: 1,558 workplaces (18.3%)
Recently, the newspapers have been reporting that the Labor Standards Bureau will be performing onsite inspections and requiring that the maximum number of overtime that can be performed in a month is to be reduced to 80 hours from 100 hours.
As part of the plan to prevent excessively long working hours, the first step is to ensure that Companies have appropriate attendance record systems in place, and it can be assumed that more stringent checking will take place going forwards.
Hence we ask that each Company once again reconfirms that what you have in place is safe and appropriate.
Notes:
*Workplaces: These are offices which individually have submitted a 36 Agreement. One Company can have multiple workplaces; i.e. Head office, Factories, Sales Offices, Branches
*Illegal: This is in breach of the Company’s filed 36 Agreement which states the maximum number of overtime hours employees can work
※Should you have questions or concerns regarding the above please do not hesitate to contact PMP at info@pmp.co.jp