What is work-life in Japan like?
 

I've always loved Japan and after going there on vacation I'm seriously considering working there for a few years. I already have a bachelor's degree in accounting and will enroll at my second bachelor's soon (IT) so I want to work in those fields.

But how many hours a day does the average worker in Japan spend at his job? And how many days a week? And are jobs more stressful there than in the western world?

The actual work week in Japan is 40 hours. A 5 day week of 8 hours of work with 30 minutes break for each 4 hours worked. (Think an hour long lunch break, a 40 minute lunch break with 2 10 minute breaks, etc) I believe the norm for time required at work for a normal salary is 42.5 hours. (30 minutes a day for morning/evening meetings.) 9 to 6 is much more common than 8 to 5.

Actual working hours - well, that is going to depend on the company and the individual worker. There is an image of incredibly long hours, but it isn`t always the case. There tends to be "waves" of work. One time of the year the workload will be low, other times of the year you`ll have 4 or 5 hours of overtime a day.
Again though, it all depends on the company, position, and your own choices.

I had a contract for 40 hours a week, five days a week with 2 weeks home leave and 3 weeks vacation. I actually worked at least 75 hours a week, six days a week, never got vacation (paid to me when I left) and I did get my home leave. They feel that managers should be honored to work so hard for their staff. I already put in my time when I was younger and felt it was my time to slack off a little and let the younger staff take over. Japan has the opposite view. I will never work for a Japanese company ever again even for the insane amount of money they paid me. It isn't worth it.:mad:

lol yeah the unpaid overtime of managers is hilarious
congratulations on your "promotion" if you can call it that!

I've heard many times of people fearing the manager "promotion" lol

Most people I meet in Japan work very little or an awful lot. The 40hr work week is not something common among those I know.
The funny thing is though, that those who DO work 40hrs a week all have part-time positions, not full time, which means they get shit pay among other differences.

During my years in Japan I did mostly work around a 40 hour week. I did work for foreign owned companies though. I also managed to get the Australian standard of 20 days annual paid leave instead of just 10. I didn't get to take Japanese public holidays though but if I did work them I got a day off in lieu and most overtime I did do (which wasn't all that much) I would log as time in lieu to be used later. But I was never paid vast amounts. As I worked at a ski resort it was all about lifestyle rather than making money.

Well I'm avoiding the salaryman culture.

I work as a contractual IT engineer here in Japan for the past 7 years.

I have been to 3 different Japanese firms who deals with Hakken( contractual ) employees.

My first company requires us to work for 150-200hours per month. Our manager was very lenient with the number of hours per month as long as we have 8 hours/day. And we have overtime and paid leaves and it was very easy to take a leave of absence. Basically we follow the company rules of the current employer we are in.

The second one was hell. I have to work for a minimum of 180hours/per month, regardless of the number of vacation that month have. Imagine in May, when we have a week of holiday. I have to compute the rest of the days in the month to be able to get the minimum number of hours. If we go below that for whatever reason, our salary gets deducted. I wanted to quit after my first contract with them , but we made another arrangement and tried it but to no avail. I left them last March.

The third and current one, I am required to work 8hours/day but the company I am assigned takes precedence. So now I only work 7.3 hours/day. So far so good.

Different company have different rules. But it is usually 8hours/day.

"Salaryman culture" is what you make of it.
It is incredibly popular to paint it as long working hours, no vacation, etc etc - particularly in western media. But there is a reason why there are so many salarymen and why it is considered a good position to be in... And why being a productive adult (社会人) is almost always synonymous with being a salaryman.

Every company is different. Some companies require long working hours. Others will let you do 6 hours a day on flex and allow you to work from home. Some have an unwritten overtime requirement. Others like to have you turn your overtime into free days off so you can take extra long vacations.

In most cases, the only thing uniting "salarymen" is that they are all paid a salary, so have a contract (in other words, a secure position). Working for an hourly wage is incredibly unstable - people tend to avoid it.

That sounds awful. Is that a contract employee thing? All the companies I`ve seen info on have different requirements for different months - they will subtract the national holidays from the hourly requirements when the holidays fall on a weekday.
Definitely good to get out of there.

i work as a software engineer for a japanese company in japan. work hours should be 8:30 - 5:15 everyday with 12-1 lunch break. i haven't been doing overtime lately but there was a time i was working 60 hrs overtime per month.

work life here is... quite difficult i think. people are so serious about their jobs (don't talk to one another while working, etc). language barrier is also a very big problem.

My cousin is an executive at a very very small advertisement firm. He lives in Omiya - Saitama, office is right by the Tokyo station. It is typical for him to leave home at around 6:00ish and return at around 11ish 12, sometime even 1 or 2 in the morning

YES!!.. awful, stressful..they are hakken gaisha. I talked to the company manager on where I was assigned that time in Tokyo and found out that they require everybody to work from 150-180 hours every month and still pay worth 180 hours to each hakken. So basically there was no reason for us to work our ass off to get the minimum of 180 per month. I found out about this 2 months before I left the company, and it really pisses me off thinking about how they screwed us. Right now, I am just sooo relieved I am out of there. I do not need to stress myself. No shady contract.. taxes and insurance are clearly paid.

@godwine, that is one problem if you work for a very small company , u are "requested" to do your part in making the company grow. I try to avoid companies like this, i still want to have a little bit of social life :vsign:

@kokakora ... not talking while working? really? the only time that happened to me was because there was nobody around to talk to :) I am break the law every now and then as long as it does not hinder my work. Although there was one time an old japanese co-worker said "urusai" to me when I was humming a tune :):mtongue:

Going further on the point of "depends on individual and company" I believe it depends on the nationality also. I have friends (who are Japanese, Chinese, White) who all work at the same Japanese company (in America) and the Japanese are inherently expected to work longer (and if they leave at 5:00pm receive disapproving looks) while their American counterparts are not expected to do. Maybe it's just this particular company...not sure.

I also deal with a gentlemen who is Japanese, working for a Japanese company, who lives in America who stays until 8pm-9pm at night because he starts receiving emails from Japan at night. I can only assume this is true for employees who work in Japan with their counterpart companies in the United States.