Japan Press Weekly

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2019 August 14 - 20 [LABOR]

1,768 firms instructed to pay 12.6 billion yen in back pay for overtime

The Labor Ministry on August 13 announced that it instructed 1,768 companies to pay a total of about 12.6 billion yen in back pay for unpaid overtime in fiscal 2018.

The number of firms that received instructions to comply from the ministry was the second largest after the 1,870 firms in the previous year.

The amount paid to workers based on the instructions was 7.11 million yen per company on average, and 118,837 workers received back wages equivalent to 110,000 yen per worker.

After FY2001, 24,398 corporations in total paid more than 310 billion yen in back pay for unpaid overtime to about 2.5 million workers.

The Japanese Communist Party has raised the issue of unpaid overtime more than 300 times in the Diet since 1976, leading to the April 2001 Labor Ministry directive which obliges employers to keep records of workers' work hours so as to eradicate the overtime work without pay. The ministry has since published the results of its instructions to comply every year.

Past related article:
> Record high of 44.6 billion yen paid in back pay for overtime in 2017 [August 12, 2018]