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.