In the General Survey on Working Conditions published in December 2025, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported that workers took on average 66.9 percent of the annual paid leave they were granted. It was the highest rate since 1984.
The government’s target is a rate of 70 percent or more by 2028.
In a survey by the travel company Expedia, workers in Japan said they had been granted an average of 19 days of paid leave in 2023 and had taken 12. At 63 percent, the rate was the lowest of the 11 regions in the survey.
Of the workers in Japan, 53 percent said that when they take paid leave, they feel guilty toward the colleagues who cover their work.
In 2023, the insurer Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance introduced the ikukyū shokuba ōen teate, an allowance to support the workplace of an employee on childcare leave. It goes to everyone in that workplace, in the same amount for all.
The amount, up to 100,000 yen, depends on the length of the leave and the number of people in the workplace.
Shachiku (社畜): company livestock. The news site Limo defines it as a person who works sacrificing himself for the company he works for.
The origin of the word is uncertain. Limo says it is said to have been a buzzword of 1990. Mynavi News attributes it to the writer Azuchi Satoshi and dates its probable first use to a book of 1992.
Earlier labels for devoted workers were mōretsu shain, the fierce employee, and kigyō senshi, the corporate warrior.
At the Princess Ekiden, a women’s relay race, in October 2018, Iida Rei, a 19-year-old runner for Iwatani Sangyō, broke her right shin. She crawled on all fours to hand the tasuki, the team’s sash, to the next runner. Reports give the distance she crawled as 200 meters, 250 meters or about 300 meters.
On television afterward, the sociologist Furuichi Noritoshi proposed that a runner who cannot go on should be allowed to pass the sash from where she stops. The host, Ogura Tomoaki, replied: Sore jā ekiden no imi ga nai wake deshō. Then there would be no point in an ekiden.
In November 2025, the drug company Taisho Pharmaceutical surveyed 1,200 working people in their twenties to sixties who had caught a cold in the past year. On average, they said they wanted to stay home from work at a temperature of 37.70 degrees Celsius. On average, they actually stayed home at 37.84 degrees.
Isshinjō no tsugō ni yori (一身上の都合により): for personal reasons. A guide in Mynavi News says that on a resignation notice, writing this phrase as the reason is basically all that is needed.
When the employee leaves by choice, the guide adds, no detailed reason has to be given.
In the Shiroishi Forestry Office case, decided on March 2, 1973, Japan’s Supreme Court ruled on annual paid leave. The purpose for which the leave is used is no concern of the Labor Standards Act. How the leave is spent is the worker’s freedom, and the employer may not interfere.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare publishes guidance on fair hiring. It lists matters that employers should not ask about on application forms or in interviews.
Among them are the applicant’s family, including their occupations, health, education, income and assets. Others are the applicant’s housing, down to the floor plan and the number of rooms, and the applicant’s living and home environment.
Kōshi (公私): public and private. The Digital Daijisen defines it as public matters and private matters.
Kōshi kondō (公私混同): mixing public and private. Lumping public and private matters together without drawing a line between them. The definition uses the word kejime, a clear line or distinction.