Japan is gearing up for a similar festival as Easter approaches. For them, it is the Ogon Shukan, known as the Golden Week there and celebrated at the end of April. However, there is another issue that makes us especially interested in this regard: the May sickness that follows these vacations and dominates the Japanese labor system year after year.
This is the reason why thousands of workers in Japan can’t quit their jobs
Though the translation is as accurate as possible, the phenomenon is called gogatsubyō, and as you might have guessed from its association with the holiday week in Japan, it responds to a post-holiday syndrome that draws two notable peaks among the Japanese population: the increase in depression and the increase in requests for payment waivers. In Japan, it’s becoming more and more normal to have to pay an online agency to quit for you at your workplace, which may seem unbelievable to those of us on the other side of the planet. Following significant events, like Golden Week, some businesses receive up to 150 requests every day.
We are talking about almost 11,000 inquiries if we look at the total. With prices ranging from 20,000 to 50,000 yen (124 to 310 euros at current currency rates), the service entails the company informing the employee of their resignation, negotiating their departure, and providing advice if things get out of control. As amazing as it seems, we are still discussing voluntary job termination. The truth of the issue is that, due to the work culture in Japan, which lies somewhere between the ideal of loyalty and the most toxic relationship between an employee and their company, facing such a separation does, at best, cause real stress for Japanese employees.
In the worst-case scenario, however, they are compelled to remain with the company while their supervisor tears up their letter of resignation so they don’t have to deal with it. In addition, 20% of workers in their 30s and 40s put in between 49 and 59 hours a week without receiving extra compensation, and 15% go over 60. These long work hours make it easy to see how detrimental such a work culture is to Japan’s mental health, and that the country has nearly 3,000 work-related suicides annually.
Japan is facing a record drop in population for the first time in decades
A declining workforce and fewer consumers are two major issues for society and industry as a result of the nation’s birth rate, which is among the lowest in the world. The decrease in the non-foreign population was the largest since the government began collecting comparable data in 1950, and it was the 13th straight reduction, according to the Interior Ministry. Including foreigners, the population fell by 550,000 to 123.8 million, marking the 14th consecutive annual decline. The country’s remaining 45 prefectures saw a population decline, while only two—Tokyo and nearby Saitama—had growth.
The prefecture of Akita, in the northern part of Honshu Island, experienced the most obvious decline. The population of Japan has been steadily declining from its peak in 2008 due to a declining birthrate. Moreover, the Japanese government has been working to assist young prospective parents who feel too financially limited to have children, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said in a briefing. Despite its reliance on youthful foreign workers, Japan maintains a tight immigration policy that only permits temporary foreign workers to enter the nation. According to former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the government plans to spend 3.5 trillion yen (approximately $25 billion or €23.5 billion) each year on child care and other parental-support measures by 2023.
