Japan Press Weekly

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2017 December 20 - 2018 January 9 [LABOR]

1,349 corporations paid 12.7 billion yen in back pay for overtime in 2016

In 2016, the amount of money paid to workers in back pay for overtime was 12.7 billion yen, up 2.7 billion yen from a year earlier, the Labor Ministry recently announced.

The government led by Prime Minister Abe is intending to relax the existing work hour regulations by such means as introducing a “zero-overtime payment” system in defiance of an increasing call for tightening the regulations.

According to the Labor Ministry, Labor Standards Inspection Offices across Japan last year instructed 1,349 companies to redress overtime work without extra pay, which enabled 97,978 workers, 5,266 more than the previous year, to receive back wages. The number of corporations which paid outstanding overtime of at least 10 million yen stood at 184.

The largest amount of back pay that one company paid out was 675 million yen, an increase of 137.4 million yen compared to the previous year. In the past 16 years since FY2001 when the Labor Ministry’s survey on unpaid overtime started, a total of 20,760 companies have received the labor law authorities’ instructions to end their illegal labor practice of unpaid overtime. Back payments amounting to 253.2 billion yen have been made to 2.17 million workers in total.

The Japanese Communist Party since 1976 in the Diet has taken up the issue of unpaid overtime work more than 300 times. In April 2001, the Labor Ministry increased its efforts to address the issue and began releasing the results of the efforts.

Past related articles:
> Labor bureau instructs KEPCO president to stop forcing workers to work long hours [January 23, 2017]
> Labor bureau instructs major delivery company to stop wage theft [November 17, 2016]