Work Culture in Japan

10 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **Work Culture in Japan**

   I love Japan and pretty much want to live there. But I still hesitate to move because of their work culture – no work life balance. Recently, I saw a video of a foreigner working in western companies in Japan said that their work culture is not similar with Japanese companies. It gave me hopes that I can live and work in Japan without suffering from toxic work experience. Can my hopes become a reality? I am a developer with years of experience.

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2. [List of countries by average annual labor hours](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_labor_hours) show that the working hours in Japan is similar to USA, New Zealand, Austria, and Italy. From my personal experience, I don’t feel like I’m overworking in Japan or people I know here do.

3. It varies depending on the company. But yes, you will generally have a better time if you find a job back home and then get transferred to Japan. As for getting hired by a Japanese company, it’ll depend on the company and job. I’ve talked to people who have 0 work life balance (one woman wasn’t even allowed to take any time off all year) and other people who have the typical 9-5 M-F jobs. Some people work a lot of overtime. Other work occasional overtime. And some don’t work overtime at all. Are there black/gray companies in Japan. Of course. Are there regular companies? Of course.

   I think the more sucky thing about working for a Japanese company is that if they decide to transfer you one day, you’re going. Doesn’t matter if it’s another city or another country.

4. A lot of stereotypes about Japanese work culture (and a lot of general Japan stereotypes like surrounding suicide) are based on the reality during bubble economy and its aftermath. There have been crackdowns and law changes that have altered the situation. There are still so-called black companies, but those usually come with tons of red flags and are easy to avoid. If you end up working for any remotely reputable company you can expect mostly normal working conditions. There are some peculiarities that are unique to Japan – Nomikai are still a thing and common and not attending them can have an impact on your career because you are viewed as weird – but for the most part if you can navigate some of the cultural intricacies the working conditions themselves (hours worked, labour protections, holiday time) should be comparable. Plus you will always get some extra leeway as a foreigner.

5. If you’re a developer you should be able to find a foreign company, startup, or non black company to work for.

   See https://www.tokyodev.com/articles/first-job-programmer-japan

6. Everyone’s situation is different.

   I work for a Japanese company and I haven’t done overtime for 3 years.

   Your milage may vary.

7. The problems with Japanese working culture are fairly overstated in my experience.

   I rarely work overtime, and my department doesn’t have anyone who works more than 10 hours OT a month. We also have flex time so if you do work a lot one day you can leave early the next.

   Anecdotal of course but most I know don’t work a terrible amount of hours or anything.

8. It’s possible, but you have to mentally prepare for the chance that your first job here will be a bit crap because you need to be in the job market this side to see what’s good and what’s not.

   Also don’t write off Japanese companies entirely, the worst company I worked at here was a western company while my current place is Japanese and insanely good.

   Dev jobs mostly don’t need Japanese as well, but honestly get N2, I’ve seen mediocre devs get hired over good ones only because they can speak the language.

9. I worked for a large corporation during the bubble years and we worked “half” days Saturdays, everyone wore suits, and no one left work before their boss/anyone above them did-just your stereotypical Japanese work culture that happened to have a lot of truth to it.
   But things have changed, at least at that company, from what I’ve been told. No Saturdays at all, no suits, and overtime is strictly managed.

   I’m sure there are some companies sticking to the old ways, but don’t get too caught up in the whole 80’s Japan viewpoint a lot of people still have.

10. It may also depend on your background. Though I was raised in the west, I have Japanese heritage, and I noticed I was held to different standards than my non-Japanese colleagues. While they were allowed to take days off, mine were harder to get approved and I was spoken to by my superior on some occasions about it. I was expected more than my foreign colleagues to arrive early and stay until the boss left, the same as my Japanese colleagues. It was an interesting experience, and I wondered if it was just my job placement. But I’ve noticed I’m held to different social standards even outside of work too, just because I look Japanese.