Just go to Google News and search of Japanese turning to resignation agencies.
All it takes is one news org doing a small story a month ago and now we get hundreds of stories from news orgs around the world with all kinds of opinions and mutations to the original story. Its like watching bacteria reproduce. Soon we will see antibiotic resistance.
More than a decade ago I saw a story about what happened to a "Swiss National" who was jailed in the UAE for three poppy seeds on their shirt. It was quite a disturbing story and was reported around the time some more high profile cases of people being arrested in UAE for what would be normal things in western countries. I saw the same story with the same language appear in dozens of news sites I read and then got suspicious that the wording was near identical and the individual never named.
search for "swiss national jailed UAE poppy seeds" and you can still see some of the articles
Anyway, I contacted the NGO (who it seems does good work, btw!) and asked who this person was and what happened to them. I got a response that during an interview about a more prominent case they told one journalist that it was just a rumour they heard and the story snowballed from there. Nobody contacted them to get more details.
The point I took is not that anyone is malicious or has some sinister agenda but that budgets in newsrooms had been so cut to the bone and "content" needed to be produced as fast as possible to get the clicks, to churn out those stores, and get that ad revenue that nobody had time to do basic fact checking. They were incentivised by the system not to.
Not surprised the story is being spread around. I'm sure that a lot of corporations would be happy to amplify a story that will make workers in other countries feel better about not being treated as badly as Japanese workers are by their employers, but I hope it just gets people thinking about how given the chance employers will abuse us to whatever extent we allow them to. Maybe it'll get people thinking about what can be done to improve things where they are or at least make sure things never get as bad.
Need is not a matter of my or your opinion. The fact that they exist shows that they are required. Have you heard of similar agencies in other countries?
>“In Japan, companies are traditionally strong – what your employer says goes,” he says. “And Japanese people are generally reluctant to rock the boat. Resigning is seen as escaping and evading your responsibilities. But that is changing.”
Oh man.... wait until the youth hear about the US custom of Job Hopping every year to get better pay. The labor markets everywhere are shrinking as people like me are yeeted, or age out of the supply.
No wonder the Japanese model is to have a job for life... you're a serf in that model.
> Japan’s chronic labour shortage – a symptom of its low birthrate – has also made employers more determined to retain staff, even if it means intimidating them into staying
Holy moly. Me dumb would think if there is labor shortage then employers would compete to offer the best wage, work ethics, working conditions, and so on.
That's basically the 'hand of the free market', people will go where they have better condition. Those who retain staff through fear are in for a rough ride, you can't go against human nature even in society like Japan that emphasize abnegation so much.
In other countries what they would do is push for more immigration so that they can remain in dominant position, but thankfully for the Japanese they don't have that issue.
I bet that Japanese labors condition will drastically increase in the coming 10 years.
Because it really is not. Health care in general is large cut for gdp in any developed system. So if you substantially increased wages and number of workers. You would also need to either run higher budget shortfalls. Or bump taxes a bit. And voters really are not going to take these, even if nurses would get paid.
It's not unpaid. Payment is pretty low though, around 300 bucks per month. Also it's 50% longer than military and you're forbidden from using or owning a gun for 15 years because pacifism is the only accepted reason to opt out of military service.
"Many voters were apparently swayed by warnings from health organizations and charities, which had said they would not be able to cope without the 14,000 young men who opt to carry out community service each year.One of them was Alfred Körbel, a 74-year-old from Vienna.
"Civilian service is very important for our society," he told DW. "Organizations like the Red Cross and other health care providers would not be able to keep going without such support."
There was a big generational gap in voting trends, with older people more likely to support conscription. Heidenkamp explains that there was "a blend of different motives" that led to the outcome in favor of conscription."
In short, "we need to keep it as otherwise who would do that" instead of paying more :<
The people who set the prices of labour based on the productivity of the worker. The Global Council of Price Fixers, who if not but for, we could take all the profits of the engineers and redistribute them to the teachers. So that we can make sure every $1 an engineer could've turned into $100, a school can turn it into 50 cents.
Japan also has a stagnant economy, so companies can't afford to get into bidding wars over talent and offer lavish salaries and benefits like they do in the US.
Not allowing immigration and simultaneously having a large decline in birth rates, thus a worker shortage is largely what caused Japan's economy to be in the stagnant state its been in for the past 20 years. Before that, everyone thought Japan would be the world economic powerhouse.
The US economy has boomed, largely in part due to the rise of software and technology, and most of the big firms in that space were started by young people and immigrants, things Japan is choosing to have less and less of.
>I bet that Japanese labors condition will drastically increase in the coming 10 years.
That sounds too optimistic to me. The same problem (shrinking young workforce and hellish working conditions) has been going on for a couple decades now with no end in sight. Reform seems impossible; improvement will only come when the big companies collapse and are replaced by companies run by the younger generation who don't see indentured servitude as a virtue. Because no way is anyone in the older generation going to willingly give up their feudalistic power over their employees, they'd rather see their company go bankrupt.
India has mandatory EPF (India's counterpart of the 401(k)) contribution for salaried employees, and in cases of dual employment (i.e. dual streams of employer deposits) it causes all sorts of issues and in most cases result in immediate blacklisting of the employee.
Also, labor protection for white-caller workers is non-existent in India. Basic expectations like fixed working hours, 5-day weeks, paid overtime etc are luxuries only attributable to the absolute top cream of employers (which mostly tend to be non-Indian MNCs). Other basic things like 2-week notices, flexible retirement and paternal leaves are just straight-up absent, even in top employers.
I worked with Indian off-shore and on-shore outsourcers, and their working conditions terrified me. These were IT consultants, and as you said, all but the tiniest percentage at the very top were treated like slaves.
Not in India but in Hungary you also have exit paperwork. Without the exit papers from your previous company, a new company cannot begin making social security contributions on your behalf, which means your employment is not legal (there is a grace period I think but most companies will not allow you to start work without the exit papers). Where I work this is not weaponised to stop people leaving, but we do withhold the exit papers until the last day of the notice period (it is common in Hungary to have to give 30-60 days’ notice to your current employer) as a type of enforcement.
They can IF they see a working and safe alternative.
But one trait of abusive relationships is, that the abuser destroys the self esteem of the victim, making them believe, they cannot stand on their own and that they need the abuser. And that they should rather be thankful ..
Which is why safe houses were founded.
To provide such a temporary alternative.
Interesting. On the funny side, glad to hear there are more then 100 of these companies because workers in these companies probably need to ask a competition to hand their resignation letter.
The root cause of the problem is how heavily intertwined the banking system is with bigcos in Japan. It's basically impossible for a small startup that competes with a large keiretsu to get funding, so there's no incentive for bigcos to improve their archaic labour and operational processes, which is why Japan has had the lowest labour productivity among G7 countries for the past few decades. Given how abusive work practices have stifled Japanese birth rates, the problem will eventually be solved by natural selection: either Japan will develop a culture with better work-life balance, or the population will dwindle away to nothing and it will simply cease to exist as a nation.
Back at a previous job in a Japanese Traditional Company over a decade ago, a guy had been trying to quit for months.
‘Tradition’ has it that before you quit, you have to schedule a chat with your team lead, who will then direct your request to the department head for approval. (Yes, you need _permission_ to quit. Fuck the law)
This person was a fairly senior engineer and thus quite essential to the company so they kept giving him the run around, rescheduling his chats and not giving him a direct answer.
One day, a letter addressed to the dept head came, looking all important and official, like it came from a client. The dept head opened the letter and after taking a quick glance immediately tossed it. Our senpai engineer then jumped up and shouted across the entire office, you have seen my notice now, you cannot deny my resignation! I quit! And he stormed off like a boss.
Basically the gist of the story is that they cannot deny your resignation if requested but as long as they don’t acknowledge it they can pretend you never requested it. That’s the origin story of these companies.
Can't you just avoid the suit notice, the same way they avoid the resignation notice?
I mean, I'm sure you're right. I just want to highlight that it's actually oppressive bullshit perpetrated by the rich, not "a funny quirk of a foreign culture". Of course when you try to avoid the notice, it won't work.
> Japan’s chronic labour shortage – a symptom of its low birthrate – has also made employers more determined to retain staff, even if it means intimidating them into staying.
It's not as if there aren't other ways to convince workers to stay on the job. It's kind of telling that they resort to threats and harassment before they try better wages/benefits or more flexible hours.
When employees feel like they can't leave an abusive job you're just a tiny step from slavery. Japanese workers clearly need to assert themselves. If for some of them this is the only way they feel comfortable doing it, at least it's something. Nobody should feel powerless to leave a job they hate.
>Japanese workers clearly need to assert themselves.
I would hesitate to make such an assertion without deeply understanding Japanese culture. There are always trade-offs. The Japanese people have a very unique culture with a lot of positive attributes; it could be that this phenomena is a side-effect of a greater good. To wit, the notion of "loyalty" in Western firms has all but disappeared, in both directions, along with pensions and the rest. As with an engineering decision, you must consider the trade-offs carefully before making a change, or you risk making things worse.
Have you considered the possibility that the good effects are for some smaller group, such as business owners and managers? If we're going to be wise and realise that all decisions have advantages and disadvantages, we should also realise these are not distributed equally.
I'm sure slavery had advantages too, for the owners.
I'd argue that the notion of "loyalty" in Eastern firms isn't doing very well either considering how employees are being mistreated. Employers abusing their workers certainly aren't loyal and employees who are being abused or intimidated and feel unsafe leaving that job aren't sticking around out of a sense of devotion for their company. I don't think people have to choose between slavery and pensions either. There is clearly a lot of room for a much healthier middle.
In any case, whatever the consequences would be to Japanese culture if workers stopped having to pay someone to feel safe leaving their job I feel pretty comfortable saying it would be well worth it.
Just go to Google News and search of Japanese turning to resignation agencies.
All it takes is one news org doing a small story a month ago and now we get hundreds of stories from news orgs around the world with all kinds of opinions and mutations to the original story. Its like watching bacteria reproduce. Soon we will see antibiotic resistance.
Churnalism.
More than a decade ago I saw a story about what happened to a "Swiss National" who was jailed in the UAE for three poppy seeds on their shirt. It was quite a disturbing story and was reported around the time some more high profile cases of people being arrested in UAE for what would be normal things in western countries. I saw the same story with the same language appear in dozens of news sites I read and then got suspicious that the wording was near identical and the individual never named.
search for "swiss national jailed UAE poppy seeds" and you can still see some of the articles
Anyway, I contacted the NGO (who it seems does good work, btw!) and asked who this person was and what happened to them. I got a response that during an interview about a more prominent case they told one journalist that it was just a rumour they heard and the story snowballed from there. Nobody contacted them to get more details.
The point I took is not that anyone is malicious or has some sinister agenda but that budgets in newsrooms had been so cut to the bone and "content" needed to be produced as fast as possible to get the clicks, to churn out those stores, and get that ad revenue that nobody had time to do basic fact checking. They were incentivised by the system not to.
Is this a problem? Every time another one comes out, more people learn about this interesting thing for the first time.
"Media Magnification" - There's a word for it :)
Maybe the japanese ftc-equivalent should require one-click resignation.
(see, now the ftc subscription story is breeding with the resignation story)
YouTube pushed a video about it to me a few days ago - I guess it’s an algorithm driven story.
Not surprised the story is being spread around. I'm sure that a lot of corporations would be happy to amplify a story that will make workers in other countries feel better about not being treated as badly as Japanese workers are by their employers, but I hope it just gets people thinking about how given the chance employers will abuse us to whatever extent we allow them to. Maybe it'll get people thinking about what can be done to improve things where they are or at least make sure things never get as bad.
The one with the red haired woman? I was just telling my friend about that one the other day.
Congrats, you figured out how all internet journalism works.
People are curious beings :), I find a culture that requires these agencies and love learning more.
It isn’t clear that the culture does actually require these agencies (at least in a common case).
It is clear that people love reading/writing articles about it though.
Need is not a matter of my or your opinion. The fact that they exist shows that they are required. Have you heard of similar agencies in other countries?
The fact they exist only shows that someone makes money or benefits from them existing. Customer need is only one way that manifests nowadays
Sounds viral.
>“In Japan, companies are traditionally strong – what your employer says goes,” he says. “And Japanese people are generally reluctant to rock the boat. Resigning is seen as escaping and evading your responsibilities. But that is changing.”
Oh man.... wait until the youth hear about the US custom of Job Hopping every year to get better pay. The labor markets everywhere are shrinking as people like me are yeeted, or age out of the supply.
No wonder the Japanese model is to have a job for life... you're a serf in that model.
> Japan’s chronic labour shortage – a symptom of its low birthrate – has also made employers more determined to retain staff, even if it means intimidating them into staying
Holy moly. Me dumb would think if there is labor shortage then employers would compete to offer the best wage, work ethics, working conditions, and so on.
That's basically the 'hand of the free market', people will go where they have better condition. Those who retain staff through fear are in for a rough ride, you can't go against human nature even in society like Japan that emphasize abnegation so much.
In other countries what they would do is push for more immigration so that they can remain in dominant position, but thankfully for the Japanese they don't have that issue.
I bet that Japanese labors condition will drastically increase in the coming 10 years.
This looks similar to labor shortage of nursing in other countries. Somehow paying more and increasing work conditions just isn't an option.
Because it really is not. Health care in general is large cut for gdp in any developed system. So if you substantially increased wages and number of workers. You would also need to either run higher budget shortfalls. Or bump taxes a bit. And voters really are not going to take these, even if nurses would get paid.
Case of Austria.
Why do they have conscription? Because the alternative service is to work as an unpaid laborer in things like nursing and so on...
It's not unpaid. Payment is pretty low though, around 300 bucks per month. Also it's 50% longer than military and you're forbidden from using or owning a gun for 15 years because pacifism is the only accepted reason to opt out of military service.
Could you elaborate on this?
Probably similar to how it used to be in Germany. The many conscientious objectors to army service were doing useful work for very little money.
I think that Wikipedia article will explain this to you better than I could.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst_in_Austria
Also, referendum in 2013...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Austrian_conscription_ref...
https://www.dw.com/en/austria-bucks-trend-with-conscription-...
"Many voters were apparently swayed by warnings from health organizations and charities, which had said they would not be able to cope without the 14,000 young men who opt to carry out community service each year.One of them was Alfred Körbel, a 74-year-old from Vienna.
"Civilian service is very important for our society," he told DW. "Organizations like the Red Cross and other health care providers would not be able to keep going without such support."
There was a big generational gap in voting trends, with older people more likely to support conscription. Heidenkamp explains that there was "a blend of different motives" that led to the outcome in favor of conscription."
In short, "we need to keep it as otherwise who would do that" instead of paying more :<
When they cut the teachers' wages And I was not a teacher I stayed quiet
When they underpaid the nurses And I was not a nurse I looked away
When they devalued the caregivers And I was not a caregiver I remained silent
Then when my own profession faced cuts There was no one left To stand with me
But you didn’t stay quiet, you were telling them to learn to code.
Who is "they"?
Nazis, traditionally. Typing it out makes the comparison feel weak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
The people who set the prices of labour based on the productivity of the worker. The Global Council of Price Fixers, who if not but for, we could take all the profits of the engineers and redistribute them to the teachers. So that we can make sure every $1 an engineer could've turned into $100, a school can turn it into 50 cents.
Japan also has a stagnant economy, so companies can't afford to get into bidding wars over talent and offer lavish salaries and benefits like they do in the US.
Not allowing immigration and simultaneously having a large decline in birth rates, thus a worker shortage is largely what caused Japan's economy to be in the stagnant state its been in for the past 20 years. Before that, everyone thought Japan would be the world economic powerhouse.
The US economy has boomed, largely in part due to the rise of software and technology, and most of the big firms in that space were started by young people and immigrants, things Japan is choosing to have less and less of.
>I bet that Japanese labors condition will drastically increase in the coming 10 years.
That sounds too optimistic to me. The same problem (shrinking young workforce and hellish working conditions) has been going on for a couple decades now with no end in sight. Reform seems impossible; improvement will only come when the big companies collapse and are replaced by companies run by the younger generation who don't see indentured servitude as a virtue. Because no way is anyone in the older generation going to willingly give up their feudalistic power over their employees, they'd rather see their company go bankrupt.
Huh. I mean - how does that even work? How can the company “force” you to stay, aside from emotional/cultural pressure?
Like - If you hand in a resignation, they tear it up, and then you just no-show… what happens?
In India your new employer demands "leaving certificate". This is an official letter from previous letter that you are no longer employed with them.
An existing employer can weaponize this and simply not issue this letter.
This does not happen in India but I am not sure if this the case in Japan though.
Are there laws that stipulate that or is it just a custom?
India has mandatory EPF (India's counterpart of the 401(k)) contribution for salaried employees, and in cases of dual employment (i.e. dual streams of employer deposits) it causes all sorts of issues and in most cases result in immediate blacklisting of the employee.
Also, labor protection for white-caller workers is non-existent in India. Basic expectations like fixed working hours, 5-day weeks, paid overtime etc are luxuries only attributable to the absolute top cream of employers (which mostly tend to be non-Indian MNCs). Other basic things like 2-week notices, flexible retirement and paternal leaves are just straight-up absent, even in top employers.
I worked with Indian off-shore and on-shore outsourcers, and their working conditions terrified me. These were IT consultants, and as you said, all but the tiniest percentage at the very top were treated like slaves.
Not in India but in Hungary you also have exit paperwork. Without the exit papers from your previous company, a new company cannot begin making social security contributions on your behalf, which means your employment is not legal (there is a grace period I think but most companies will not allow you to start work without the exit papers). Where I work this is not weaponised to stop people leaving, but we do withhold the exit papers until the last day of the notice period (it is common in Hungary to have to give 30-60 days’ notice to your current employer) as a type of enforcement.
The letter of the law is not that strong in India..
What possible justification is there for that? How did the country of Gandhi get to the point where humans are treated like corporate property?
Same thing happened that has the cooks and gardeners beholden to non-compete agreements in the land of the free!
Greed is universal. Slavery is one of the outcomes.
You’re asking why someone doesn’t just leave an abusive spouse.
They mentally can’t.
They can IF they see a working and safe alternative.
But one trait of abusive relationships is, that the abuser destroys the self esteem of the victim, making them believe, they cannot stand on their own and that they need the abuser. And that they should rather be thankful ..
Which is why safe houses were founded. To provide such a temporary alternative.
Surely they have certified mail in Japan.
Like cancelling your DSL contract before the FTC intervened, I guess.
I suppose slacking off isn't an option?
I'm pretty sure giving notice works the same in Japan as everywhere else: You give notice. Your employer does not have to agree to it.
Interesting. On the funny side, glad to hear there are more then 100 of these companies because workers in these companies probably need to ask a competition to hand their resignation letter.
The root cause of the problem is how heavily intertwined the banking system is with bigcos in Japan. It's basically impossible for a small startup that competes with a large keiretsu to get funding, so there's no incentive for bigcos to improve their archaic labour and operational processes, which is why Japan has had the lowest labour productivity among G7 countries for the past few decades. Given how abusive work practices have stifled Japanese birth rates, the problem will eventually be solved by natural selection: either Japan will develop a culture with better work-life balance, or the population will dwindle away to nothing and it will simply cease to exist as a nation.
Wow. Totally the other way around from US.
This looks like a great example of why so many HN readers skim the comments before bothering to read the article.
Story time!
Back at a previous job in a Japanese Traditional Company over a decade ago, a guy had been trying to quit for months.
‘Tradition’ has it that before you quit, you have to schedule a chat with your team lead, who will then direct your request to the department head for approval. (Yes, you need _permission_ to quit. Fuck the law)
This person was a fairly senior engineer and thus quite essential to the company so they kept giving him the run around, rescheduling his chats and not giving him a direct answer.
One day, a letter addressed to the dept head came, looking all important and official, like it came from a client. The dept head opened the letter and after taking a quick glance immediately tossed it. Our senpai engineer then jumped up and shouted across the entire office, you have seen my notice now, you cannot deny my resignation! I quit! And he stormed off like a boss.
Basically the gist of the story is that they cannot deny your resignation if requested but as long as they don’t acknowledge it they can pretend you never requested it. That’s the origin story of these companies.
It’s telling that if you google for resignation letter in Japanese, you still get a lot of them titled 退職願 — Request to Quit.
Things have gotten better in the past 2 decades. 退職届 — Notice of Resignation is more common nowadays.
> Yes, you need _permission_ to quit. Fuck the law
Is this in Japan? What happens if you simply stop showing up?
Legally speaking, you may be sued for damages.
Socially speaking, you’re never working in the industry again, possibly never be in full employment ever again.
Things are better now but shit like this was rampant even back in the late 2000s early 2010s.
Can't you just avoid the suit notice, the same way they avoid the resignation notice?
I mean, I'm sure you're right. I just want to highlight that it's actually oppressive bullshit perpetrated by the rich, not "a funny quirk of a foreign culture". Of course when you try to avoid the notice, it won't work.
Would having quit your earlier job reflect on you badly when looking for a new job?
Not in our particular industry which is still somewhat meritocratic.
Even in the late 2010s, I was still hearing people saying shit like not having more than 5 entries on their employment history.
Like an inverse subpoena, brilliant
> Japan’s chronic labour shortage – a symptom of its low birthrate – has also made employers more determined to retain staff, even if it means intimidating them into staying.
It's not as if there aren't other ways to convince workers to stay on the job. It's kind of telling that they resort to threats and harassment before they try better wages/benefits or more flexible hours.
When employees feel like they can't leave an abusive job you're just a tiny step from slavery. Japanese workers clearly need to assert themselves. If for some of them this is the only way they feel comfortable doing it, at least it's something. Nobody should feel powerless to leave a job they hate.
>Japanese workers clearly need to assert themselves.
I would hesitate to make such an assertion without deeply understanding Japanese culture. There are always trade-offs. The Japanese people have a very unique culture with a lot of positive attributes; it could be that this phenomena is a side-effect of a greater good. To wit, the notion of "loyalty" in Western firms has all but disappeared, in both directions, along with pensions and the rest. As with an engineering decision, you must consider the trade-offs carefully before making a change, or you risk making things worse.
Have you considered the possibility that the good effects are for some smaller group, such as business owners and managers? If we're going to be wise and realise that all decisions have advantages and disadvantages, we should also realise these are not distributed equally.
I'm sure slavery had advantages too, for the owners.
I'd argue that the notion of "loyalty" in Eastern firms isn't doing very well either considering how employees are being mistreated. Employers abusing their workers certainly aren't loyal and employees who are being abused or intimidated and feel unsafe leaving that job aren't sticking around out of a sense of devotion for their company. I don't think people have to choose between slavery and pensions either. There is clearly a lot of room for a much healthier middle.
In any case, whatever the consequences would be to Japanese culture if workers stopped having to pay someone to feel safe leaving their job I feel pretty comfortable saying it would be well worth it.