Technically the work week is the same, not factoring in commutes. Folks who work in Tokyo often live in neighboring cities like Saitama and commute in.
There’s typically a lot of unpaid overtime though. There is the concept of “black companies” that force employees to work up to 100 hours a week. To some degree the government has been trying to crack down on it, and has met with some success, especially with the bigger international. My company is the Japanese branch of a US company, so we are a little better than most, but some of that still happens. I probably work about 45-50 hours a week on the clock on average, plus maybe 2-3 off the clock. I don’t live or work in Tokyo anymore, so my commute is fairly insignificant.
Thankfully the “you have to go out drinking with all of your coworkers after work” thing has mostly fallen by the wayside. Those events still happen, but it is way more acceptable to just…not go.
Source: I have worked in Japan my entire adult life
Okay what? Isn’t the average workweek length in Japan only slightly longer than in the West?
The official work hours, sure. All the unpaid, unreported overtime they have to do, nope.
Technically the work week is the same, not factoring in commutes. Folks who work in Tokyo often live in neighboring cities like Saitama and commute in.
There’s typically a lot of unpaid overtime though. There is the concept of “black companies” that force employees to work up to 100 hours a week. To some degree the government has been trying to crack down on it, and has met with some success, especially with the bigger international. My company is the Japanese branch of a US company, so we are a little better than most, but some of that still happens. I probably work about 45-50 hours a week on the clock on average, plus maybe 2-3 off the clock. I don’t live or work in Tokyo anymore, so my commute is fairly insignificant.
Thankfully the “you have to go out drinking with all of your coworkers after work” thing has mostly fallen by the wayside. Those events still happen, but it is way more acceptable to just…not go.
Source: I have worked in Japan my entire adult life