Are you familiar with the term "karoshi"? It is actually the Japanese word for "dying from being overworked".
The Japanese labor code doesn't have any provisions to make sure that employers wouldn't overwork their employees. As a matter of fact, employees are required to render long hours and overtimes.
Such is the reason why one employee named Matsuri Takahashi of Dentsu Corporation committed suicide last December 2015 after being required to clock in 105 hours of overtime. It literally drove her insane.
Dentsu Corporation found themselves in the middle of a media scandal because of the employee's suicide. It also caused its CEO Tadashi Ishii to file for resignation and step down from his post.
Ishii asked for forgiveness from Takahashi's family, saying that he sincerely offers condolences to her bereaved family.
Hopefully, change is going to come, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe filing for a bill to amend their current labor code.
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