During the initiative this summer to combat turnover, Microsoft’s Japanese branch introduced (via MetroUK) 3 day weekends, boosting their productivity quite a bit.

The new break had employees spend 20% less time at the office, however they saw attendance improved by almost 25 percent and electricity costs reduced by almost 24 percent. Their productivity increased by almost 40 percent as well.

Despite this, Japan as a whole has the lowest job satisfaction rate in the entire world. This tends to leave employers bewildered mostly on how to improve that margin.

The work ethic in Japan is pretty much ”you get what you put in” and workers end up putting their entire lives into their jobs. When it doesn’t work out, then they end up disgruntled, thus souring their experiences in the workplace, then that resentment carries over into other jobs.

Also, the corporate life and daily grind just isn’t for some people, it could be that as well. Microsoft noted they’ll be trying the program again over different times of the year moving forward.

A new labor law (via The Telegraph) was implemented recently to try and combat the high amounts of ”death by overworking” in Japan due to its long storied history of too many hours expected of workers at these jobs and the refusal to allow time off for sickness etc etc and pushing people to their breaking points over and over.

The general public doesn’t look at the NEET life (not employed or entered training) as a very attractive one, so when someone ends up like that, it’s hard to get out of that rut. You see that type a lot in anime as the ”slovenly, reclused, unwashed hermit” types that sit in their rooms all day.