Japan's overworking problem: A probe into 24,000 Japanese workplaces revealed that 37% had violated overtime laws

• Japanese authorities found that nearly 9,000 companies breached overtime laws last year.
• Employees at these workplaces were working more than 80 hours of overtime a month.
• It's so common for Japanese employees to work themselves to death that the country has a term for it - Karoshi, or literally "death by overwork."

Probes by Japanese authorities into overwork complaints at 24,042 workplaces revealed that 37% of these companies had employees working 45 hours a month or more in overtime, the country's Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare reported last Friday.

Japan officially adopted a 40-hour work week in 1987 and considers anything beyond that to be overtime.

Japanese labor laws generally limit overtime to 45 hours a month. However, if a company goes through extraordinary circumstances and its employees agree to work more overtime, they can be granted an extra dispensation to work up to 80 hours of overtime per month.

While that 80-hour cap is calculated based on the average of several months, employees are not permitted to work more than 100 overtime hours in a single month, according to labor laws.

Of the 8,904 companies that clocked extensive overtime between April 2020 and May 2021, 2,982 workplaces broke the monthly 80-hour overtime limit, said the ministry.

The ministry also confirmed cases of workers pulling more than 100 hours of overtime work a month in 1,878 workplaces.

At least 93 companies had employees working 200 hours of overtime a month, per the report.

The report reflects the offending rate of companies that had complaints lodged against them and is not a general survey of all companies in Japan.

Employers found to violate the laws could face up to six months in prison or fines of up to JP¥300,000 ($2,727).

Japan has recently been trying to relieve itself of a grueling overtime culture that has persisted for decades. It's so common for Japanese employees to work themselves to death that the country has a term for it - karoshi, or literally "death by overwork."

Victims of karoshi were typically middle-aged men in office jobs, Hiroshi Kawahito, a lawyer and secretary-general of the National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi, told Reuters. But recently, women have made up one in five of such cases, he said.

One notable case involved a reporter for Japanese broadcaster NHK, 31-year-old Miwa Sado, who died in July 2013. She had worked more than 159 hours of overtime that month and nearly 147 hours of overtime the month before. Authorities said her heart had been so weak that it couldn't pump enough blood to the rest of her body.

In another tragic case, 24-year-old ad agency employee Matsuri Takahashi jumped to her death from her dormitory on Christmas Day after clocking 105 hours of overtime in one month.

In addition to overwork, Japanese workers routinely don't take enough time off. The ministry's official stats show that the average Japanese employee only took 52.4% of the paid leave they were entitled to in 2018. The federal government has tried to curb overtime pressure with policies like making employers designate days off for workers with unused leave, or giving employees the chance to leave the office at 3 pm every last Friday of the month.