Kids Web Japan

Q. How much do the "hard-working" Japanese really work?

A.

In the past, people in other countries sometimes pointed out that the Japanese worked too much. But in recent years the number of working hours has been brought down considerably. How does Japan compare with other countries in this respect? The figure for manufacturing in 2005 shows that the average worker in Japan put in a total of 1,802 hours, down from a total of 1,975 hours in 2003. This was slightly more than in Britain, where the figure was 1,888 hours. In the United States, the figure for the same year was 1,929 hours. The average number of hours per working week was 44.0 hours in Japan in 2004.

In 2005, 60.4% of the people working for companies in Japan had two full days off every week. Many other people have every Sunday off, plus one Saturday off every two weeks. Government offices and most businesses are closed for the 15 national holidays Japan has every year. They also give their employees an average of 8 days off in the summer and 4 to 6 days off around New Year's. The average number of days off (including national holidays and regular days off) was 113.2 days in 2005. The average number of additional paid holidays per employee in 2005 was 18.0, but the average number that they actually used was only 8.4 days.