Japan tries to get overworked nation to take a holiday
Studies cite heavy workloads and inconvenience to colleagues as reasons why Japanese workers decline to take allotted holidays
Politely asking Japanese employees to take more of the annual holidays that they are entitled to has fallen flat.
So the Japanese government is to introduce incentives for companies to encourage them to make their staff put their feet up.
The government will introduce a system of rewards for firms where workers take more time off as part of a broader effort to improve the work-life balance of average people.
Another part of the scheme will be the introduction of “Kids’ week,” during which children in different parts of the country will get time off in addition to existing school holidays and parents will be encouraged to take days off work to spend together as a family.
Japanese workers took 48.7 per cent of the holidays to which they were entitled in 2016, equating to 8.8 days of their annual paid holidays. That figure was fractionally down from the 48.8 per cent of holidays they could have taken in a similar study conducted three years previously, despite efforts to encourage people to take their full entitlement of vacation days.
The government has now set a target of increasing that figure to 70 per cent by 2020.