Hello,
Someone just told me that in Japan, the Labour laws say an employee can give 30 days’ notice regardless of what is stated in the work contract signed by the employee and company. Which means that even if the work contract stipulates a longer notice period, like 3 months for example, the employee can decide to only give 30 days.
I was quite suprised by this statement and would tend to believe it is incorrect.
Could someone help clarify?
3 comments
I think it’s actually 14 days.
The 3 month notice rule in all practicality is meaningless.
Technically, if you broke a company rule, like “you can’t privately contact students” the default allowed action is to fire you. So if you break the 3 month notice rule for quitting, the only slightly conceivably allowed action would be to fire you which who cares at that point?
It’s not correct.
Notice periods are covered under the civil code (articles 626 and 627), not labour law, and it’s dependent on the term of the contract.
If you are on a contract with an indeterminate term (permanent employee, seishain, etc.) then the legally mandated notice period is two weeks/14 days.
If it is a contract with a fixed term, say 6 months or one year for example, then the notice period is the notice period stipulated in the contract.
Once you have been working under a fixed term contract for more than a year **or** once it has been renewed at least one time, then a fixed term contract is deemed to be of indeterminate term, and the 14 day legal minimum then applies.
An employer also cannot refuse to accept a resignation or require a notice period longer than the legally mandated minimums (Labour Standards Act Article 5 regarding forced labour).
Legally 14 days except in the first year of a contract. In that case it is whatever the contract says.
Now, people will tell you that even if you ignore that, there is nothing the company will do. That’s basically true. It is still a dick move though.