I worked for a large Japanese manufacturing company. For sure my employer was more old school in a lot of ways simply because it was a big old company. I bet some of the newer industries are less like this. However, I would still be surprised if they were that much better. I had friends in different industries and heard similar stories.
A Japanese citizen sees the full breadth and complexity of the Japanese economy. They would naturally perceive foreign media as oversimplifying and unresponsive to more recent changes. It’s true that Japan (government and industries) are attempting to move away from this style of work but, like many things in Japan, it’s extremely slow, mostly symbolic, and plagued by inertia. Us salarymen clocking in and out was probably implemented with good intentions at first. I never asked but I bet it was enforced at one time. One of the big reasons they’re trying to change is because men that work all day can’t find a wife and have kids. Japan is in a demographics crisis. The cultural xenophobia makes them reluctant to let immigrants in to help with labor shortages. I remember government sponsored dating programs which is funny to think about.
This cultural inertia isn’t all a bad thing btw. It makes institutions very stable. My company had hordes of procedures and burocracy for everything which was inefficient but you could count on them to do what they planned to do. I remember finding out about a government plan to stimulate the economy by giving some money to some companies so they could invest in growth. They had the problem of the companies just giving the money to shareholders in big dividends. They don’t have the expectation of explosive growth like we do in the US.
The thing they really do well though, is soft power. Any time I bring up that Japan is a very racist, sexist, xenophobic, or homophobic society, an army of anime fans and sushi lovers are ready to defend them. Japanese society is complicated and no one person fully fits a generality but I couldn’t keep living there.
fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
I was in Japan two months ago vacationing, and I asked the local guide about the work culture. He told us that although the fame is real, there were some high profile suicides during COVID due to toxic work conditions and that there have been some reforms in the field that have improved the situation a lot. By how much I can’t say, but in case you worked before then maybe the situation is better than what you remember? Hopefully.
JillyB@beehaw.org 6 days ago
I worked there during the pandemic. Summer 2019 to summer 2021. I never heard about any reforms but a lot was happening around then and I’m sure I missed a lot.
One thing that did change during the pandemic was that my company went optionally remote. Working from home was even more unheard of in Japan than in the US before the pandemic so that was crazy. And they even reduced the number of desks in the office so they couldn’t have all the workers in at the same time. A lot of US companies have since rolled back those policies. No idea if my old company stuck with it.