Japan has relaxed part of its overtime enforcement system, ending official pressure on some companies to keep monthly overtime below 45 hours even when special labor-management agreements permit substantially longer schedules. The change responds to business demands for flexibility amid worker shortages, but unions warn that it weakens protections against overwork.
Around 40 percent of Japanese businesses operate under agreements that allow monthly overtime of as much as 100 hours, according to the labor ministry. Despite that legal provision, labor standards inspection offices had continued advising those employers to stay at or below 45 hours. Companies treated the guidance much like a regulation because inspectors could press them when workers exceeded the lower threshold.
That practice changed on the event date. Inspection offices will no longer pressure businesses covered by the special agreements solely for passing 45 overtime hours in a month. The higher limits authorized by their agreements remain the operative legal boundary.
The revision does not remove the 45-hour rule across the economy. Employers without a special labor-management agreement are still legally required to keep monthly overtime at 45 hours or less. At some workplaces, any labor beyond the normal statutory schedule—typically eight hours a day and 40 hours a week—remains unlawful.
Business groups argued that the earlier inspection approach constrained industries already struggling to find staff. A May survey by the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry found that the pressure affected operations at about one-fifth of small and medium-sized businesses. Construction, transport and hospitality were among the sectors most exposed to the shortage and the enforcement practice.
The health rationale behind the lower threshold has not disappeared. A labor ministry official said working beyond 45 overtime hours can increase the risk of karoshi, the Japanese term associated with death from overwork. The ministry says it will continue checking whether employers protect their workers and will intervene where excessive hours create a high risk of health problems.
The policy follows a growth strategy adopted in July by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government that called for changes to oversight of working hours. Takaichi has publicly portrayed herself as intensely committed to work, including saying after becoming leader of her ruling party that she would repeatedly work and writing that she slept as little as zero to three hours while serving as prime minister. Those comments have sharpened attention on the government’s approach.
Zenroren, the National Confederation of Trade Unions, condemned the change as a retreat from efforts to shorten working time. The criticism draws on Japan’s recent attempts to move away from a culture of extremely long corporate hours, an issue that gained renewed urgency after the 2015 suicide of a 24-year-old employee at advertising company Dentsu.
The new framework therefore separates legal permission from routine regulatory pressure. Eligible businesses gain room to use the overtime already allowed in their agreements, but the ministry retains authority to act when schedules threaten employee health. Whether that balance increases flexibility without reviving dangerous working practices will depend on how employers use it and how consistently inspectors apply the remaining safeguards.
