Japan Proposes Four-Day Working Week to Improve Work-Life Balance

upstart writes:

Japan proposes four-day working week to improve work-life balance:

The Japanese government has just unveiled its annual economic policy guidelines, which include new recommendations that companies permit their staff to opt to work four days a week instead of the typical five.

There are drawbacks to the government's plans, however, with Japan already experiencing a labor shortage brought on by fewer young people joining the workforce.

Equally, there is concern that management will be reluctant to do away with some of the attitudes towards business that have served Japan Inc. so well for generations - even if there is clear evidence that traditional approaches are less effective than they were in the past.

Employees, on the other hand, find the idea of a shorter working week appealing, but they do worry about reduced wages and accusations that they are not fully committed to their company.

(...) It is also anticipated that young people will have more time to meet, marry and have children, going some way to solving the worsening problem of a falling birth rate, an increasingly older national demographic and a contracting population.

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