At a key economic and fiscal policy discussion in mid-April that addressed promoting a four-day week, Suga said that the government should consider expanding support to people willing to improve their careers through recurring training before leaving work. At the end of April, the ruling Liberal Democrat Party recommended that the government adopt policy measures to facilitate the introduction of the system. Reductions in working hours are expected to encourage a diversified work style and encourage workers with new skills to move to fast-growing industries such as IT.
Julia Pollak, labor economist at ZipRecruiters, found that the average four-day week job advertisement received 15% more applications than other job advertisements in the same industry, according to 2018 company data. In 2018 the New Zealand real estate planning and consulting firm Perpetual Guardians worked with academic researchers in Auckland to track the effect and paid its 240 workers about $40 an hour to work four days a week. In large economies such as Australia, Canada, Italy, and the US, workers work longer hours than Japanese, according to surveys by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In 2018 the New Zealand property planning firm Perpetual Guardian ran a four-day week where employees are paid 37.5 hours but required 30 hours for the same amount of work. In 2019, Microsoft tested the four-day week as a challenge to career choices during the summer of 2019 in Japan, where employees received a five-day pay cut. Microsoft wants to be seen as an employer that gives its employees a flexible work style and the choice to work shorter hours, rest well and learn how to get better, increasing productivity and creativity.
Microsoft Japan has tested a four-day week and found that it has been a huge boon to employee productivity. The software giant saw a 40% increase in productivity after reducing its hours as part of a larger project to promote a healthy work-life balance. The company said productivity increased by 40% in August, and 92% of employees said they were satisfied with the workweek at the end of their run.
Internet and e-commerce services giant Yahoo Japan Corp and many other companies offer the option of taking fewer unpaid work days and additional vacation days. Some have expressed concerns that a three-day weekend could reduce the wages of people, while others fear that companies will have to increase working hours on non-holiday days to compensate for lost days. In our company, we have made a conscious decision to offer employees who work a four or five-day week the same salary.
He added that the government will decide on its response after receiving a preliminary proposal for a new system that would allow businesses and workers to choose a four-day work schedule. In Japan, ministers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (KATO) have intervened and are expected to submit a proposal after consultation with experts. The party headquarters for promoting dynamic engagement with citizens, led by Kuniko Inoguchi, has already submitted the proposal.
Japan’s politician Kuniko Inoguchi, a member of the Chamber of Deputies representing a district in Chiba Prefecture, has proposed a framework for workers in Japan who choose a four-day week to guarantee they can retain their jobs. Suehiro estimated that a four-day week would reduce workers’ monthly incomes by an average of $51,000. Kuniko, a Liberal Democrat MP, submitted the proposal to Tetsushi Sakamoto, the Minister for the Promotion of Dynamic Citizen Engagement, to promote the four-day week in Tokyo in April.
By reducing the number of workers on a given day in offices and on commuter trains, the proposal to create a framework within which workers can opt for a four-day week in Japan while at the same time ensuring that they can keep their jobs could have a positive effect on efforts to combat coronavirus. Others hope that the benefits of three days off at weekends will give people more time to look after children and elderly relatives, seize educational opportunities such as graduate courses, and give them the opportunity to explore part-time ventures.
It also allows for more discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of a shortened working week. The introduction of a four-day week, albeit temporarily, gives Japan people a chance to think about different work styles. During the pandemic, people began to discuss the pros and cons of the four-day week as a system to counter infectious diseases, but also to retain employees through programs such as job sharing in which two part-time workers held jobs previously held by a full-time worker.
It is worth remembering that people worked long before the labor movement brought about much-needed change. In the 1890s, for example, when the government began recording workers “working hours, the average full-time worker in manufacturing worked an astonishing 100 hours a week. The effects of the overhaul are still being felt in Japan, which is known for having the world’s longest working hours.
TOKYO – More and more Japanese legislators and businesses are pushing for a shorter workweek to give families more time to care for children and elderly family members and to adapt to a world where distance work is more common. JAPAN – The government is considering reinstating a four-day week to improve people’s quality of life, the country’s cabinet chief said. It is hoped that the change will boost the country’s tourism industry which has been raped severely by COVID 19 in a country known for some of the longest working hours in the world.
TOKYO – The Liberal Democrats Party of Japan has called on the government to introduce a four-day voting system that would allow workers to take three days off a week according to a draft proposal. The country’s top cabinet secretary announced on Monday he was examining introducing a selective three-day weekend – leave scheme based on initial recommendations made earlier this month by both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.
Companies already began to offer more flexibility to their employees and the government has launched a campaign called Premium Friday to encourage workers to go to the last Friday of each month. Microsoft (MSFT) launched a program in Japan this summer called the Work-Life Choice Challenge, which closed its offices on Fridays in August to give the employees an extra week off. For its part, Microsoft said it has been conducting experiments with the Japanese government for years.
