Mochikaeri zangyō (持ち帰り残業): take-home overtime. Work that was not finished during working hours and is continued at home or in a café. An HR glossary by the company jinjer says it is also called furoshiki zangyō, wrapping-cloth overtime, because company documents are carried home.
The glossary adds that it counts as working time when the employer has instructed it, expressly or by implication.
On January 20, 2017, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare issued a guideline on how employers must keep track of working hours. As a rule, they must use objective records such as time cards, IC cards or computer usage logs. Where hours are self-reported, the employer must check, if necessary, whether they match the actual hours.
The guideline also forbids caps on the overtime a worker may report, such as refusing reports above a limit.
A notice of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of July 1, 2019 deals with kensan, the study doctors do on their own outside scheduled hours. Study that is not essential to the work, done of free will, outside working hours, offered by the doctor on his or her own initiative, and without express or implied instruction from a superior is generally not working time, even at the hospital.
Preparation for treatment and follow-up work that is essential to treatment count as working time.
In fiscal 2024, 40.5 percent of eligible Japanese men took childcare leave, up from 30.1 percent the year before. The figures come from the Basic Survey of Equal Employment of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
An older survey commissioned by the ministry, reported in 2014, asked men who had wanted to take leave but did not why. Of them, 29.1 percent said the workplace had an atmosphere in which it was hard to take childcare leave. Another 25.1 percent said it was a workplace where time off was hard to take at any time.
On October 4, 2025, after winning the election for president of the Liberal Democratic Party, Takaichi Sanae said: Watashi jishin mo wāku raifu baransu to iu kotoba o sutemasu. Hataraite hataraite hataraite hataraite, hataraite mairimasu. I myself will throw away the word work-life balance. I will work, work, work, work and work.
In October 2025, as prime minister, she instructed her labor minister to consider easing the rules on working hours, on the premise of health and workers’ own choice. Yoshino Tomoko, head of Rengo, called this a reversal of the efforts to correct long working hours.
On December 1, 2025, the phrase won the grand prize of the year’s Buzzword Awards. Takaichi said it had drawn both praise and criticism. Two groups of families of people who had died from overwork protested the award at a press conference.
On January 15, 2020, Environment Minister Koizumi Shinjirō announced that he would take about two weeks of paternity leave in total over the three months after the birth of his first child. He said: Seido dake de naku, kūki mo kaete ikanakereba ikenai. Not only the system but also the air has to change.
He would take the leave flexibly, he said, on condition that official duties came first. J-Cast quoted an online critic who wrote that a minister’s pay comes from taxes and that his leave was different from that of a company employee.
Before trading with a new partner, a Japanese company can order a kigyō shin’yō chōsa, a corporate credit investigation. Tokyo Shoko Research, one of the country’s credit agencies, says the investigation is made for new transactions, for raising or lowering a partner’s credit limit, and for deciding whether to keep trading.
In the agency’s words, it gathers material for judging “how far to proceed with the transaction.” Tokyo Shoko Research dates its founding to 1892.
On December 3, 2024, in a policy speech, Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko announced that the metropolitan government would let its staff choose three days off a week from April 2025. She said: Tōkyō kara gēmu chenji o okosu. We will start a game change from Tokyo.
On April 1, 2025, she told the metropolitan staff: Shūkyū mikka-sei no dōnyū nado issō jūnan ni natta seido o katsuyō shite kudasai. Make use of the systems that have become more flexible, including three days off a week.
An applicant to the Kasumigaseki Country Club is recommended by two members. According to a report in Gendai Business, these two sponsors carry a heavy responsibility. The club takes its time to judge the applicant’s character.
Without passing the screening, the report says, no one can join, even with 100 million yen. After admission is decided, the new member plays a round of golf with a director of the club.
In August 2019, Microsoft Japan closed its offices on every Friday of the month, the 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th, as part of its Work-Life Choice Challenge 2019 Summer.
The company announced that labor productivity had risen 39.9 percent compared with August 2018.