As I am a huge 鉄オタク I truly hope you are right. The main complaints I saw were about increasing workloads alongside staff reductions, and shrinking bonuses since the onset of Covid-19. Are these issues something you've observed firsthand, or do you think they are overstated?
@@konichivalueI know 2 people who work there and while its not great by western standards its certainly nowhere near the worst company to work for, not by a long shot. depends on your job there. One works on their hotel operations side and the other works as station staff. one of them receives a heavily subsidised 3 bedroom apartment in a good location for their family and both receive heavy discounts on trips and shinkansen tickets. JR also outright owns hospitals which are completely free for employees. It is true what you say though where you may need to use your personal leave to attend company events/training or just lose it due to an emergency. Regarding bonuses and workloads, thats pretty much across the board in Japan. Before you never had to think about whether you got your bonus or not but now companies are changing on that. It's not about the company individually, business attitudes are changing, people actually change jobs now, pay increases are on the cards. The economic environment is changing and can't be isolated to just a few companies
Notice what all these companies have in common? They are all the largest… largest electronic/electrical appliance store, largest transportation, largest insurance etc. Also CEO / management with the largest EGO.
I'm surprised Dentsu wasn't mentioned as the worst of the worst. Things described here are not just those companies, but a pretry common thing in a lot of Japanese companies. Because it's not just these companies being bad themselves but its the general issues in the society like vertical hierarchy, extreme bushido loyalty, feel of guilt, gaslighting, mindless following of rules that define any logic and just because it's rules, etc - all that becomes the perfect breeding ground. "ijime" (bullying) is one of the pillars of this society, starting from school and continuing into workplace. You're expected to treat Kohai like slaves when you become the Senpai yourself. Most Japanese never went abroad or experienced working in a different environment, so most don't even realize that something is wrong with their current workplace. This is normal and common knowledge to everyone, unless a foreigner joins the company and points something out. And even then, the foreigner won't be heard, will simply be seen as some crazy guy and will be ignored, like those crazy guys in the streets yelling about incoming apocalypse. Btw, you forgot to mention the みなし残業 (Minashi Zangyo, or Expected Overtime) system. You basically get paid extra 20-30k yen each month regardless if you work overtime or not and are expected to stay overtime on your manager's whim. Most companies have it fixed at 20-40 hours which is written in the job listings when you job hunt. Meaning you are expected to work that amount of hours before you even start getting paid extra for overtime. So if the company has Minashi Zangyo 40 hours you start getting paid after your 41th hour of overtime you did this month. What my genius previous company did is they simply said starting next week we are also working on Saturdays too. Since it was still within those 40 hours of Minashi Zangyo we didn't get paid any extra for Saturdays, because it was already expected from us. It went from "9am-6pm FIVE work days a week" to "9am-6pm SIX work days a week" with a snap of a finger, just like that. For the same monthly salary. The 36協定 (Article 36 Agreement) of 2019 finally forces companies into reducing the overtime hours and forcing workers to take at least 5 days of paid leave every year (nobody ever takes any at all unless they are forced to, or they actually need a day off to go to the ward office, bank, post office, etc, because they all close early), otherwise the companies will be fined by the Labor Standards Inspection Office. But that's the only reason - because they are scared of being fined and because it's the new rule which must be followed. They could care less about their workers suffering health issues from doing overwork. In Japan, if you get sick it's considered to be a weakness and to be only your responsibility, even if it was caused by the workplace stress. Hence why there's no such thing as a "sick leave". Usually every worker has to punch the time card when they start working, when they leave, when they have overtime hours, etc, in a unnecessarily overcomplicated software that looks like it was written in the 90s. But what I've seen some people, especially those in Sales, do is they clock out and then still keep being present at work. The facade of being a busy worker and buttering up to your boss by staying is that much more important in the Japanese society than any actual law. Leave on time and your coworkers and your boss will start to hate you. They may not show it hiding by the polite tatemae mask but expect passive aggressive treatment here and there. They can't easily fire you if your a 正社員 (seishain, regular employee) but they will try to create an environment to make you quit, or simply transfer you across the country, regardless if you have a family you'll be separated from or not. This is too common in jp companies. In some cases they can force you into 休職 (temporary suspension) and reduce your salary down to 60%, or no salary at all, to make you quit on your own. Lots of people are afraid to lose the current "stability" and look for a new job, because you'll have to start your career again from zero basically. Down to being a low class Kohai again and have to grind your buttering up to the new boss again. Job hopping is still very frowned upon and only couple years at a company will look extremely bad on your resume. The salaries are low across the board. Even in IT if you're in the 一般 (general) worker category and not in the management position your salary can be pretty much close to a regular English teacher salary, or even lower. And good luck trying to climb to a higher position when there's so little room for career growth. All your hard work won't be noticed simply because nepotism and because Tanaka licked the boss's bottom cleaner. "Horenso" (report, contact, consult) is business rule/culture of any Japanese workplace and it's elevated almost to a religious status. Everything is built upon reporting on what's going on at the moment. The results of a task aren't that important, but reporting about its ongoing process is VERY important. The boss never checks any tasks they give - you yourself are expected to report about your ongoing task several times a day. On any little change that happens about something. But this isn't just about reporting tasks. If you're in IT and they use work chats like Slack you will be secretly assigned a person to constantly monitor your every move who will keep snitching everything you do to the higher manager in real time. There will be secret meetings held behind your back about what you do. (This behavior is actually pretty common in daily life, when some obaachan calls police on you for "acting suspicious" of just sitting on a bench in the local park). You won't even know about it unless a month or two later you'll receive a letter about "results" of a held meeting regarding your actions. Even if you think it's a perfect workplace, you're happy, everyone is so friendly, you're acing your job, and have no idea you did something wrong. (real example - I opened an official cloud course while looking up stuff which was made like an interactive web page with different animations, and I was snitched on for "playing games at work". The sheer appearance of not being busy at a jp workplace is a big no no. You must always simulate being busy even if you have nothing to do and have to move the mouse and click the screen randomly). As a result. You will be made to write 顛末書 (detailed written report) on what problem you've caused, that you reflected upon yourself, and what will you do in the future to avoid causing any more problems. This will happen every single time they think you did something that they decided to be inappropriate - your colleagues will keep snitching on your right as they're smiling in your face. Even if things aren't stated or defined anywhere in the company rules. If you refuse to write 顛末書 it can be escalated to a termination. Things can go from 0 to 100 in a single day in a jp company. Any non-comformity is heavily hammered down. Any objections/arguments are viewed as excuses. You have no word and must obey. If you're into masochism and like it miserable then the JP workplace is for you.
I have friends who work IT in japan and i get...interesting descriptions. Where its either hellish or its hilariously lazy depending on the office. and this stems from them still being in the 90s on the IT mindset in some companies where you basically have an IT Basement mentality. No one knows what IT does and leaves them alone for the most part to just do whatever they need to do(the good companies) or everything is dumped on them if it isnt working perfectly for 5 seconds(the bad ones). then again IT is a wierd field globally so im never sure anymore.
This reads like the redditors guide to working in Japan. A lot of these things you have written like you have to do or you get pushed towards quitting or snitched on are things people seem to continuously regurgitate but haven't ever been true or haven't been true since the 80s or 90s.
@@BOYVIRGO666 Me > Replying to you at work in Japan while taking a poo not worrying about nonsense written on the interwebs. You > Believing nonsense from the interwebs/from your friends that are working in grind IT positions to keep their visa.
@@donpalmera This is all from my experience from only 7 years of being here. With Japan being so ridiculously avert to change I'm sure things won't change even in the next 100 or more years. If you were lucky to get the unicorn job at a gaishikei or a progressive Japanese startup then of course your experience would be different. But that's more like an exception.
I agree. My mother injured her arm working in the conveyer belt because pf repetitive actions and lifting heavy ingredients... While working in a freezer like temperature environment. Oh, and she didn't got any compensations.
This is a significant part of a large picture as to why there’s a declining birth rate in Japan. Overworked and yet still underpaid leads to less time and money for people to even consider starting a family. Japanese people aren’t loners by choice, the work culture made them that way.
@@ZontarDow I did include the word "AND" in-between overworked AND underpaid, and less time AND money. Even if money is out of the equation, just being overworked to near death doesn't help motivate anyone from getting married then starting a family, let alone raising a child.
@@ffenixrising again, it's two unrelated subjects which is why you see the collapse in birth rates everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, regardless of wealth or time to raise children that's available. Society hasn't felt enough pain to talk about the real source, not yet. Though because of their social structure Japan is one of the countries that will course correct faster then most when the time society acknowledges the source finally arrives.
Low birthrate is common to almost all developed countries. Italy n Spain are lower than Japan while Korea is the lowest. The US and Germany are little higher than Japan just due to numerous immigrants.
Working for Japanese companies is the pits. As an American who worked for Toyota, I’d have to say it was shockingly absurd in illegal labor practices, bullying, nepotism, racism, sexism, etc. Don’t do it.
A friend of mine was an upper engineer in North America Toyota and walked out when he wasn't given a day off when his wife prematurely gave birth to twins. Prior to this he was anti-union but now he works for government. He will never drive a Toyota.
Honorable mentions: Bigmotor, for doing all sorts of scummy things to get customers to buy repairs and insurance for cars Japan Beverage - forcing employees to pass a quiz to earn time off and regularly forcing up to 100+ hours of overtime Nijisanji - LOL
Believe it or not the last one actually got a lot of support from their Chinese fanbase, thinking it was the talent’s fault. Typical “you get what you put up with”
My number #1 black companies they call in Japan....Gaming/Animation studios. Seriously mentally taxing works without set limits.. just deadlines. My friend son works for JC Staff and the poor guy is totally bald compared to his dad looks just as old as us.
Recently dated a Japanese lady from Japan and its exactly as you say. Mandatory OT, going on vacational leave period isnt really much of a vacation, the company will antagonize you if you dont bring something back for going on leave, NO TYPE OF FLEXIBILITY, mandatory fun when they just want to go home, sloppy schedules etc
None of these really surprise me. Japan has a bunch of problems in work culture and has been stealing some practices from american work culture that makes them worse. Especially contractor culture and retail culture. I will say that JR East surprised me.
Oh, Japanese work culture is far, far faaaaar worse than American work cultlure. Source; American that worked in 4 Japanese companies in Japan and 2 American ones.
@@kmo20794 Oh definitely. I have only worked for japanese companies in a remote basis(they refused the work visa) but its really obvious to see the problems. I only meant they are taking on some american business habits that make japanese companies worse(and they are already bad tendencies in american companies) the outsourcing issue in japanese business is becoming a problem since it upends how japanese work culture works already. The fact that job changes make you look really bad in interviews but they dont aknowledge that it was not your choice, the contract work not being considered a 'real job' in japanese companies despite contract jobs becoming more common is becoming a real problem there. Source: college roommate is a hiring manager in japan and has to argue with Hiring staff constantly.
Retail is a nightmare in America. Basically if you are desperate enough to take a job without concern for current wges or working conditions or having to spend a big chunk of your income on looking good on the job, then retail awaits. You can't live on vague pie-in-the-sky promises.
Honestly the Japanese workers only have themselves to blame. Japan is facing a severe labor shortage, the perfect condition for workers to fight for better rights and pay. Yet due to some misguided notion of “loyalty” this is not happening.
It's a bit more complected than that. First of all, Japanese companies are still reluctant to hire "quitters" even if they have a labor shortage. Secondly, salaries can actually go down if you switch jobs because you're seen as an entry level employee again, even with many years of experience in the field. This is changing, mostly thanks to foreign companies swooping up talet with vastly superior salaries, but most Japanese employees still value job security over high salaries which is what almost every Japanese company provides in droves
These companies have the most complaints, not the worst environments. And it's easy to tell: people can't complain when they're dead or over abused. In this top 5 there's none of the main "death by overwork" rankers, like the senior healthcare companies.
i agree taking complaints as KPI doesnt give the full picture: when i worked as rescuer in ambulance, i was not that concerned when the victim of an accident was screaming or yelling, problem starts when the victim has no more energy to even talk or give feedback. That is were the real worst work environments starts, and believe me they are not in office/retail workjob like the ones in this list.
Culture is the #1 problem in Japan. . Creativity is suppressed. It won’t thrive unless the system breaks down as it did after the war or something equivalent happens to society. But having said that the situation elsewhere in the world isn’t that great either due to extreme greed.
Seeing those salarymen all wasted on the train was funny when I first got to japan but it ended up being pretty sad by the end. Makes me really question how bad their work life is, because that's not normal. I remember one guy on the Fukotoshin line, dressed very sharp and had a clean look to him, he boards the train and his eyes can't stay open and he's stumbling around falling on people, the other passengers started pushing him around and eventually he just lied down in front of the train doors all passed out and people were stepping over him. He seemed mentally drained on top of being hammered.
I was in Tokyo last week for one week. So we went by train a lot even during rush hours. We saw so many (old) people sleeping there all looking wasted "to the moon". My first thought when I saw some of these people they might be suicidal. 😬
I was surprised not to see Uniqlo, Mitsubishi or Dentsu in the top 5. Plenty of "black companies" in Japan, so picking just 5 must have been difficult.
Uniqlo is really questionable, so is Mitsubishi. I’m thinking more about Dentsu because it’s both a filming workplace nightmare and a trademark+copyright bully at the same time.
@@SlapstickGenius23Mitsubishi is responsible for what happened at Hashima Island (or most commonly known as Gunkanjima). Imagine 5,000+ people got forcefully evacuated from the area, just because the coal mines were not becoming feasible because of a recent law. They only got to leave with only mostly the clothes on their back, and were mostly relocated to Hokkaido with worse working and living conditions.
@@Random1208You're forgetting that Japan ain't a western, individualistic country. "Whatever you do, do not cause trouble for others" is what we're taught from young age. I legit can't imagine more than 1 person in 10,000, no, 100,000, who'd be able to participate in an even which will cause utter chaos with a clean consciousness. Just to get a raise. Eff everyone else. ... Nah. Ain't happening. The amount of social anger directed at the workers on strike would drive them to end themselves. No joke. People will be furious at them. Do you really think enough employees are willing to become public enemies number one for a raise?
If Japan is a bit like Germany in this case then there would be always train service to some extend. German workers went on strikes every few weeks in the last year but they have to maintain an emergency schedule. There are also workers who are not a part of the labour union. This means they do not take part on strikes with their co workers.
Im filipino and I have worked with 3 different japanese construction companies namely Sumisetsu Philippines (Sumitomo in Japan), Taisei Qatar, Modair Manila (Tonets in Japan). I can honestly say that the work environment really depends on the management. Japanese people as we know are hard workers but it really depends on the management and the your Japanese superior if they will abuse you or not. P.S. Japanese companies tend to really pay well and are known for being legal in all aspects. They respect the law and they as much as much as possible tend to abide by itt.
that's because those Japanese companies are operating outside Japan. they can't make a mess outside their home country but in their home country they'll run it in their own terms and rigid rules
Johnny & Associates is also among the worst places to work in Japan. The late founder Johnny Kitagawa had sexually abused hundreds of men from the 1970s to the 2010s. As many as 478 people have accused him of sexual misconduct. Sadly, justice can never be truly served, as Kitagawa died in 2019.
Johnny was a Japanese American and yet he had tremendous power over Japanese corporations who relied on his company to supply bodies. Its too bad he never had a chance to do a tell all from his perspective of Japanese executives, their companies, and how he manipulated them.
And Japan's economic stagnation is catching up. The youth are despairing over an economy that shows no results and is producing many "Hikikomori". Customs that seem insane in the US and Europe are common sense in Japan. As a Japanese, we sometimes envy the working environment in the West.
This is what is called natural selection. Japan's people work more than almost any country, yet they are falling behind. They are burning through their people until they run out. And a collapse will come. But it is hard to have sympathy despite knowing where it lead.
as a current employee of foreign banking industry in Osaka. This is true but our working environment is really different if our boss or director told us that the overtime is until 17:30 then its only 17:30. After that he told us to go home
This is the same in America working for retail, fast food, anything, and it’s low pay, nothing changes, dealing with tons of customer complaints and not even able to support yourself with one job you have to have multiple jobs, you have to pick a job that you can deal with or you can set your own hours
I used to love visiting Yodobashi Camera when I was young. Nowadays, I can only be in there for less than 30 mins before the crowd, loudspeaker, and the THEME SONG drive me crazy.
Japanese companies "oh no, we are in a shortage of employees", also Japanese companies "I wanna hire someone at FAANG level, who gonna work for 12 hours a day for 3-5 million yen/year". Also, they gonna count your seniority not judging your actual knowledge and skills, but how many years you are working and how old you are. So, the best option is to avoid traditional Japanese companies, and if you see requirements such as "JLPTN1/N2", need to be prepared that this is typical Japanese working environment. Made huge mistake moving here. In terms of opportunities better go to Europe or USA instead
I'm only 4 minutes in, and Yodobashi Camera sounds like working in door-to-door sales in America. You know people don't want what you're selling, but if you don't push the sale you make no money and you get berated for being lazy and uncommitted.
Hello. 😊Thank you for introducing Japan. Our standard is someone who can work 12 to 24 hours a day. We are looking for people who can tolerate low wages. If you don't mind, please come and work.
In Indonesia employee works 8 hours a day and get 12 days paid leaves.If you work 24 hours a day then you don't have time to sleep.Lack of sleep is bad for your health.
Johnny’s Inc, though now defunct, is still the worst entertainment company for both mainstream workers and talents in Japanese History. It’s depressing! The good news? Some of its icons, such as Hiromi Go and Takuya Kimura, have become success stories in their own right, with the Fukuoka born star writing his own songs (and being the older Japanese equivalent of Ricky Martin, yeah!) as well as pop maven Shizuka Kudo’s hubby starring in many tv shows and movies.
The work culture in Japan is generally severely strict. I worked for a black-listed company for 8 years. I have over 100 unbelievable stories to tell. All staff were forced to work all National Holidays with no extra pay. I never received a salary increase or bonus in 8 years. Also, if I was sick, we were forced to use our limited 10 vacation days as sick days.
Thanks for making this video, it was informative and concise. I would have liked to learn more about your methodology in ranking the companies, as there might be other factors to consider. For example, larger companies will naturally have more complaints simply due to having more workers, and using a complaints-per-employee metric would help adjust for that. I also worry that some work cultures are so bad that employees fear making a complaint at all, and would never be seen by a monitoring service. I understand that there was limited data to work with for this video, since Alarmbox only showed 3009 complaints over 16k+ companies, not a lot to work with.
Thank you for your insightful comments! In creating the rankings, I used data from Alarm Box to assess work-related complaints from only larger institutions. Their methodology focused on the volume of negative feedback, with an average of about 3 per company. However, those that topped the rankings had significantly more negative feedback than this average. You're right about larger companies likely having more complaints simply due to their size, a factor Alarm Box didn't adjust for. Plus, it's possible that the worst work cultures didn't show up in our rankings because they're smaller or because managers might be monitoring and suppressing feedback. However, it's safe to say that the companies listed in the rankings didn’t end up there by accident.
Kind of funny that the backing track for the Yodobashi Camera section of the video is actually the Bic Camera theme song (a modified version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic).
You get shamed. Everyone will hate you. Your reputation will be very low. No one will want to be with you. Even your wife may divorce you due to that. The company boss will phone your wife to find out what is wrong with you, etc. Pure hell as you get pushed out of society.
Yes, in response to government initiatives and demographic shifts, many Japanese companies have actively improved work-life balance by adopting flexible work schedules, promoting remote work, and enhancing on-site wellness programs. However, the companies on this list does not fall into that category...
White companies (of course, the opposite of black companies) And probably freelance workers. Their careers aren't as stable but they do have good work-life balance
I will when I find trustworthy data on that. As you might have guessed, companies do anything to be seen as a great place to work, which is why reliable data can be hard to come by.
@@nikkosr888 I've lived in Japan a lot longer than that. Perhaps you live in the inaka, but in the big cities there are TONS of foreigners working in shops. Don't embarrass yourself any further.
Worst company to work is actual 7-11, winning black company award for consecutive years. I believe their conbini food are seasoned with the soul of their employee.
The problems of working conditions in Japan are not only the fault of Japanese management, but also the workers. The cause of these problems is that Japanese workers haven't fought hard enough for workers' rights. However, things are getting better than before and they will continue to improve.
Great place to visit, lousy place to work. Both Mrs. Rebo and I are happier living in Melbourne, Aus. Oh and if I had to work in Yodabashi or Bic Camera I’d go postal having to hear the advertising jingle blaring out every 30 seconds in the stores. Japan is so odd in that you can’t talk in the train but it’s fine to be assaulted with noise in the streets.
This is a ridiculous ranking. This survey company which conducts the survey every year, simply tallies the number of complaints posted by company employees and ranks them in order of highest to lowest. In other words larger companies with more employees are more likely to appear in the rankings. In fact, it is always the large companies that make the list. These rankings aren't at all reliable as to whether a company really has a bad labor environment or not.
These companies pretty much sound like working in the movie industry - so if you wish for something similar and you live in the US or Europe... you don't need to go all the way to Japan to enjoy that sort of lifestyle.
@@konichivalue there was a Japanese financial company about 15 years ago in Tokyo, during freshmen (new hires) training, the freshmen were yelled at and kicked. I did not see the kicks, but a colleague of almost 20 years told me the story in great detail. Needless to say, he was stunned when it occurred 😬 But that was a very extreme case, I had never experience anything like that with other Japanese companies.
The average annual working hours in Japan is 1,608 hours and in the US it is 1,811 hours. While Japan is below the OECD average, the US has some of the longest working hours in the world. What's more, surprisingly, 50% of young people in the US have second jobs due to financial difficulties, so it's possible that these people are not included in the above statistics. It's almost unheard of in Japan to work two or more jobs. What's more, it's an outrageous society in which there are homeless people who have jobs.
According to classical economic theory, if labour is short the workforce should be able to demand improvements in pay and conditions. Yet somehow that hasn't happened much in Japan.
Because people who created "classical economy theory" were a bunch of fools, who oversimplified complex stuff, and it has nothing to do with the way how the real system works. Go read the works of Keynes for example, in his case, he talks about the "effective demand" and his solution is to give money away when it is needed. Most of countries have used his "theory" for decades, which led them to huge governmental debts, without any sign of improvement. The reason is simple, if there is no need, then just giving cash won't lead to anything. You need both things, an unfulfilled need and cash/economic means to afford it to keep demand stable or grow. You would think that this common sense would be obvious even for a fifth grader, and yet, you have a bunch of morons with Phd's, who ignored this for decades. So much to say about "classical economics theories" and the economists in general.
@KonichiValue - I really like you video. I am shocked about JR East. Can you do a video on the following: 1) The Best Company to work for in Japan and why (benefits, superb employee satisfaction rating, etc) 2) Most enjoyable Millennial Corporations to work for in Japan.
As someone who worked in Japan before... you're gonna be very hard-pressed to find one in Japan. If you do, you're very lucky if you can get into foreign companies in Japan who don't acquire too much Japanese bad mentality, ethics, mannerisms & behavioural problems. Other than foreign companies, everywhere in Japan, it is hard to escape the negative effects much, especially the vertical hierarchy system. Even the best companies has its downsides i.e. negative complaints for some of the best companies still exists, but it is under the radar, due to suppression from higher management authority who don't want the truth to spread out.
I am thinking about it, but it's honestly really hard to find reliable info on the best companies in Japan to work for. If you look at regular lists www.openwork.jp/award/, recruitment companies rank really high, which just seems like they know how to game the system...
Are you not worried about blowback by way of slander from the companies mentioned? I am assuming you have the figures and stats to back the statements?
I do, and since Japan has one of the lowest English proficiency levels in the world, I'd be honored if one of these companies' few English speakers found and reviewed this entire video😅
Thank you for your post about black labor in Japan. From a Japanese perspective, the companies ranked are not far off the mark, but not at the core. Not a single land transportation or warehousing industry is in the list. I am relieved that from a foreigner's perspective, the true darkness of Japanese companies has not yet been exposed.
This footage is from the documentary 'Salaryman,' which I supported through their Indiegogo campaign back in 2017. The complete documentary was released in 2022, and you can view it here: www.journeyman.tv/film/8368.
The analysis has a major flaw - companies in the list are some of the largest employers and with the largest customer facing staff so of course more staff more complaints. And no it should not stop anyone from shopping at Yodobashi, which sometimes seems to have more staff than colustomers or Neon or fantastic JR East. This is a sensationalist video which deserves thumbs down.
Is there a flipside? The best companies to work for in Japan? My mother worked for a small family run plastics factory. They were super nice. But this was in 1980. The exception.
what's the percentage ratio of complaints vs quantity of employees? they might have the highest number of complaints bec. they have the highest number of employees.. if there's a company that only has 1000 work force and 900 of them have complaints then that's the worst one by ratio..
You're absolutely right. This ranking is based on the number of complaints, so smaller companies with higher ratios might not appear. What’s interesting though is that most companies on the list aren’t the largest in their sector. For example, Yodobashi Camera is #4 but far smaller than Yamada Denki or Bic Camera. Nissay Insurance is much smaller than Japan's top three insurers, and while AEON is huge, its competitors didn’t make the top 20. JR East is an exception as it’s the biggest in its field
The reason Japanese companies get away with poor treatment of employees, is because the system does not allow quitting and joining a different firm. So people are pretty much captive where they first get hired.
I live in Kyoto for a year right now, and I can say: they worry too much about random, useless things and ignore real problems. And something that stuck with me is: people here think they are the best and this is very complicated as it creates some huge social problems among tourists, people who live here and those who study, for example.
The JR situation is very similar for almost all of Japan. Pride over Salary Seniority over performance And with already abismal.salaries, it's no wonder that nobody in their 20s-30s can afford to have children
This is not only the case in Japan, those who open businesses in Indonesia also apply the same work system as in Japan and this is very, very bad for employees.
@@konichivalue Even if it is true, they are not run the busiest bullet train, as you mentioned in the video, with such short section of with some kodama.
My friend works for JR East... It was so bad that he barely slept more than 2 hours for 2 or 3 week.. his only day off would be to sleep the whole day and sometimes being called back to work. also, Hospital staffs , nurses and beauty palors. many small companies are often in the shadows..
I quit my last job, because our boss had us working up to 100 hours a week. Oh, and this included weekends. In his eyes it was no problem. (But he is kind of detached from reality in any case). It was highly illegal and if the authorities found out he could have received a hefty fine. But now it's a moot point, because last I heard he managed to run the business into the ground. He never could make sound decisions sometimes.
There have been studies that show that japanese employees in general(across all fields) have lower work performance than most other nations. The key reasons were lack of sleep, poor work life balance, and poor diet(linked to the work life balance issue). So no it is not an overgeneralization. Alot of these problems are endemic to Japanese work culture. Mostly office work though.
@@BOYVIRGO666 sometimes i can also say america is even worst with work life balance lets not forget that americans have more jobs in a single day as well as people there get fired in masses in favor of profit and america there reporeded more harrassment abuse and discrimination
@@lordtraxroy Eh thats not a work culture thing. thats bad management practices. different things. And no, no american company reports worse average rates of abuse than many japanese companies. some have it bad, but its generally not AS bad as japanese companies. Mostly because worker protections in america about sexual harassment are sort of better.
@@lordtraxroy America also encourages job switching as opposed to Japan where even if you get treated bad or are paid bad you are still expected to stick around to hopefully get better pay. Seniority in Japan is preferred over experience so if you leave a job, you will start at the very bottom again no matter what type of experience you had in the past.
Indeed, some companies like DISCO have successfully harnessed Japanese work culture and ethics to enhance productivity. However, the companies on this list definitely do not fall into that category.
I worked for a credit card company in Japan for years. 13 hour shifts were very common and not all overtime was paid. I only went home by 11pm because my security cards turned off then. Arrived at work by 7am to do 2 hours of prep work without pay to start the day. I remember seeing one guy get pushed outside while still on his office chair to a waiting ambulance due to a mental breakdown. One of my coworkers would break down crying in one of the storage rooms sometimes. I was one of the businessmen that had passed out outside which is common, and in front of a police station near the train station no less. They never said anything but a concerned lady woke me up and was nicely concerned about me. We had a lot of jokes at work about never being able to take holidays and found it funny when we were granted more for years of service when we weren’t able to take them anyway. Wednesday was declared a no-overtime day to make up for no holidays. We still stayed to show we weren’t weak. I do miss the fact that everyone worked hard and would never refuse to do work unlike the West. I still carry the hard work mentality with me today which is why I lock horns with people where I currently work. I can’t help it…everyone can always do better. I plan to move back again in the future because I can no longer tolerate what I see as a lazy work culture here in the West. In case you were wondering, I was hospitalized once due to overwork but I wouldn’t change anything. This is all I know. In my job interviews I ask that they take away my holidays and benefits and instead pay me more. Wasn’t like I was going to use them anyway. During a job interview in Japan, that is the last time you can negotiate your salary. It will always stay the same after that.
It is an intersting story you tell, but I wonder what the results of such hard work was... Japan still has one of the lowest credit card penetrations in the developed world and innovation has all but stagnated in most industries. I've worked in Sweden for many years and can wholeheartedly say that Swedes are much lazier than Japanese people, but at least they are smart and lazy. Swedish people will do everything to work less which often leads to innovative solutions to reduce work and stress. I do not think most of the innovations we see from Sweden could be replicated in Japan due to the fact that working hard is favored over working smart...
I wonder my self how long a Japanese must to work to survive in Japan,is like China or India where people work like slaves but Japan take it to a new level,overworking is something aceptable for Japanese people like if been slave of work could be something good.😅
I'm not saying the companies you covered in the video are in any way good, but the way you seem to have chosen them is somewhat flawed. You said you ranked them by absolute number of complaints on that platform. But you should have ranked them by the ratio of complaints received in a limited time (say over the last year, 2 years, or such) over the number of employees. If a company only has 100 workers but received 30 complaints in the last year, that may be worse than a huge one like Yodobashi or JR that may have 10,000s of employees, has been in operation for decades, and received 1000s of complaints over the years. IMO. Also, I hope you don't live and work in Japan, because making a video like this is 100% defamation, over there, and they WILL sue you.
The data I've used is robust, gathered by Alarm Box, through the media giant Diamond News, not through a simple survey but by analyzing online posts for complaints, work styles, news stories, and scandals that is given a score based on the frequency weighted the size of the company. While the data originates from one company, Alarm Box's methodology is wide-ranging and thorough, spanning across 16,633 companies. One critique is that it is a profit driven company, and hence they do not publish their full methodology online, so don't trust my list blindly. However, it is safe to assume that none of the companies on it are companies you want to work for. Also, what you can do to get more proof is to cross check it with the Japanese Glassdoor = Open Work. None of the companies on my list have a score above 2.9 and some are closer to 1. Sure, some companies have even lower ranking, but Open work has the issue of being quite heavily developer focused meaning companies with unhappy developers are performing abnormally bad. You can read more and see the links of the data here ($) : www.konichivalue.com/p/top-11-worst-companies-to-work-for
And they wonder why the birth rate declined. I was pretty much a millionaire in Japan because of the exchange rate but I dressed very casually most of the time. The passive aggression from the typical Tokyo male was mind boggling. A great society needs social mobility.
JR east is seeking to operate almost every railroads automatically in the near future. Company says this is because of labor shortage, but what real happeneing is they send old employees to the group small retailing companies to cut the human cost.
The sole idea of spending regular working hours endlessly listening to songs like bikku camera or donky ...kills me...could never work for them, let alone the convenience stores with the never stopping sound of the doors 😖
Great appearances and convenience instead of results and sustainability, also to help people to Justifty and even protect all the serious flaws in this nation that are supposed to be addressed instead, today there is a government public subsidy to keep the good jobs in the national territory, but if corporations does not want to be behind, and most of the Japanese money are ending up in related overseas investments, names like JT, and Sony already transferred full departments abroad.
First, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being a long-term subscriber! I share your perspective that appearances should not eclipse the necessity for sustainable results. However, it is also noteworthy that some companies, like DISCO with their P-Wise system, have innovatively leveraged Japan's strong work ethic to build remarkable structures that admirably combine efficiency with employee well-being. And when it comes to investments, TSMC's decision to set up shop in Kumamoto-completing a fabrication plant in a brisk 18 months compared to a much lengthier timeline in Arizona (like 10+ years...)-speaks volumes about Japan's fiscal robustness and prowess in tech. This move is contrasted with JT and Sony reallocating departments internationally, yet it underscores Japan's potential to offer a stable and highly competent environment for business growth. While there is room for reform, these examples indicate that Japan retains the potential to evolve from within.
Hey there’s misinformation in this video. You keep mentioning JR East is a bad company to work for but you keep using video footages of the Tokaido Shinkansen which is owned and operated by JR Central. These two corporations are separate companies and should not be mixed up.
I clarified this in a previous comment, but I'll do it again here :) Most of the footage is actually from JNA, the predicessor that later became JR East and JR Central (and all the other JR companies). Also, even if JR Central run the shinkansen trains, JR East is actually responsible for the major passager stations along the route, most notably Tokyo, Shinagawa and Yokohama station. The companies do in fact have a profit sharing agreement in the Tokaido line. Lastly, all shinkansen trains that stop at Atami are partly run by JR East.
Who is old enough to remember when graduate students and the world's business were reading about Japanese management? Remember Theory Z? What happened?
Im japanese. JR is a good company for work actually. Insurance, hotel, news paper, sales agency sectors are terrible.
Aren't different JR companies run differently?
@@_human_1946 while permanent staff in JR has high salary, annual contract staff hasn’t. For example, train driver is 50k us$ and station staff is 40k
As I am a huge 鉄オタク I truly hope you are right. The main complaints I saw were about increasing workloads alongside staff reductions, and shrinking bonuses since the onset of Covid-19. Are these issues something you've observed firsthand, or do you think they are overstated?
@@konichivalueI know 2 people who work there and while its not great by western standards its certainly nowhere near the worst company to work for, not by a long shot. depends on your job there. One works on their hotel operations side and the other works as station staff. one of them receives a heavily subsidised 3 bedroom apartment in a good location for their family and both receive heavy discounts on trips and shinkansen tickets. JR also outright owns hospitals which are completely free for employees.
It is true what you say though where you may need to use your personal leave to attend company events/training or just lose it due to an emergency.
Regarding bonuses and workloads, thats pretty much across the board in Japan. Before you never had to think about whether you got your bonus or not but now companies are changing on that. It's not about the company individually, business attitudes are changing, people actually change jobs now, pay increases are on the cards. The economic environment is changing and can't be isolated to just a few companies
Notice what all these companies have in common? They are all the largest… largest electronic/electrical appliance store, largest transportation, largest insurance etc. Also CEO / management with the largest EGO.
I'm surprised Dentsu wasn't mentioned as the worst of the worst.
Things described here are not just those companies, but a pretry common thing in a lot of Japanese companies. Because it's not just these companies being bad themselves but its the general issues in the society like vertical hierarchy, extreme bushido loyalty, feel of guilt, gaslighting, mindless following of rules that define any logic and just because it's rules, etc - all that becomes the perfect breeding ground.
"ijime" (bullying) is one of the pillars of this society, starting from school and continuing into workplace. You're expected to treat Kohai like slaves when you become the Senpai yourself. Most Japanese never went abroad or experienced working in a different environment, so most don't even realize that something is wrong with their current workplace. This is normal and common knowledge to everyone, unless a foreigner joins the company and points something out. And even then, the foreigner won't be heard, will simply be seen as some crazy guy and will be ignored, like those crazy guys in the streets yelling about incoming apocalypse.
Btw, you forgot to mention the みなし残業 (Minashi Zangyo, or Expected Overtime) system. You basically get paid extra 20-30k yen each month regardless if you work overtime or not and are expected to stay overtime on your manager's whim. Most companies have it fixed at 20-40 hours which is written in the job listings when you job hunt. Meaning you are expected to work that amount of hours before you even start getting paid extra for overtime. So if the company has Minashi Zangyo 40 hours you start getting paid after your 41th hour of overtime you did this month. What my genius previous company did is they simply said starting next week we are also working on Saturdays too. Since it was still within those 40 hours of Minashi Zangyo we didn't get paid any extra for Saturdays, because it was already expected from us. It went from "9am-6pm FIVE work days a week" to "9am-6pm SIX work days a week" with a snap of a finger, just like that. For the same monthly salary.
The 36協定 (Article 36 Agreement) of 2019 finally forces companies into reducing the overtime hours and forcing workers to take at least 5 days of paid leave every year (nobody ever takes any at all unless they are forced to, or they actually need a day off to go to the ward office, bank, post office, etc, because they all close early), otherwise the companies will be fined by the Labor Standards Inspection Office. But that's the only reason - because they are scared of being fined and because it's the new rule which must be followed. They could care less about their workers suffering health issues from doing overwork. In Japan, if you get sick it's considered to be a weakness and to be only your responsibility, even if it was caused by the workplace stress. Hence why there's no such thing as a "sick leave".
Usually every worker has to punch the time card when they start working, when they leave, when they have overtime hours, etc, in a unnecessarily overcomplicated software that looks like it was written in the 90s. But what I've seen some people, especially those in Sales, do is they clock out and then still keep being present at work. The facade of being a busy worker and buttering up to your boss by staying is that much more important in the Japanese society than any actual law. Leave on time and your coworkers and your boss will start to hate you. They may not show it hiding by the polite tatemae mask but expect passive aggressive treatment here and there. They can't easily fire you if your a 正社員 (seishain, regular employee) but they will try to create an environment to make you quit, or simply transfer you across the country, regardless if you have a family you'll be separated from or not. This is too common in jp companies. In some cases they can force you into 休職 (temporary suspension) and reduce your salary down to 60%, or no salary at all, to make you quit on your own.
Lots of people are afraid to lose the current "stability" and look for a new job, because you'll have to start your career again from zero basically. Down to being a low class Kohai again and have to grind your buttering up to the new boss again.
Job hopping is still very frowned upon and only couple years at a company will look extremely bad on your resume.
The salaries are low across the board. Even in IT if you're in the 一般 (general) worker category and not in the management position your salary can be pretty much close to a regular English teacher salary, or even lower. And good luck trying to climb to a higher position when there's so little room for career growth. All your hard work won't be noticed simply because nepotism and because Tanaka licked the boss's bottom cleaner.
"Horenso" (report, contact, consult) is business rule/culture of any Japanese workplace and it's elevated almost to a religious status. Everything is built upon reporting on what's going on at the moment. The results of a task aren't that important, but reporting about its ongoing process is VERY important. The boss never checks any tasks they give - you yourself are expected to report about your ongoing task several times a day. On any little change that happens about something.
But this isn't just about reporting tasks. If you're in IT and they use work chats like Slack you will be secretly assigned a person to constantly monitor your every move who will keep snitching everything you do to the higher manager in real time. There will be secret meetings held behind your back about what you do. (This behavior is actually pretty common in daily life, when some obaachan calls police on you for "acting suspicious" of just sitting on a bench in the local park). You won't even know about it unless a month or two later you'll receive a letter about "results" of a held meeting regarding your actions. Even if you think it's a perfect workplace, you're happy, everyone is so friendly, you're acing your job, and have no idea you did something wrong. (real example - I opened an official cloud course while looking up stuff which was made like an interactive web page with different animations, and I was snitched on for "playing games at work". The sheer appearance of not being busy at a jp workplace is a big no no. You must always simulate being busy even if you have nothing to do and have to move the mouse and click the screen randomly). As a result. You will be made to write 顛末書 (detailed written report) on what problem you've caused, that you reflected upon yourself, and what will you do in the future to avoid causing any more problems. This will happen every single time they think you did something that they decided to be inappropriate - your colleagues will keep snitching on your right as they're smiling in your face. Even if things aren't stated or defined anywhere in the company rules. If you refuse to write 顛末書 it can be escalated to a termination. Things can go from 0 to 100 in a single day in a jp company.
Any non-comformity is heavily hammered down. Any objections/arguments are viewed as excuses. You have no word and must obey.
If you're into masochism and like it miserable then the JP workplace is for you.
I have friends who work IT in japan and i get...interesting descriptions. Where its either hellish or its hilariously lazy depending on the office. and this stems from them still being in the 90s on the IT mindset in some companies where you basically have an IT Basement mentality. No one knows what IT does and leaves them alone for the most part to just do whatever they need to do(the good companies) or everything is dumped on them if it isnt working perfectly for 5 seconds(the bad ones). then again IT is a wierd field globally so im never sure anymore.
This reads like the redditors guide to working in Japan. A lot of these things you have written like you have to do or you get pushed towards quitting or snitched on are things people seem to continuously regurgitate but haven't ever been true or haven't been true since the 80s or 90s.
@@donpalmera nope these are all pretty true.
@@BOYVIRGO666
Me > Replying to you at work in Japan while taking a poo not worrying about nonsense written on the interwebs.
You > Believing nonsense from the interwebs/from your friends that are working in grind IT positions to keep their visa.
@@donpalmera
This is all from my experience from only 7 years of being here. With Japan being so ridiculously avert to change I'm sure things won't change even in the next 100 or more years. If you were lucky to get the unicorn job at a gaishikei or a progressive Japanese startup then of course your experience would be different. But that's more like an exception.
As someone who lived in Japan, and worked in bad places, I'll add to the list: Food Factories in general.
Give us companies 🙏
I agree. My mother injured her arm working in the conveyer belt because pf repetitive actions and lifting heavy ingredients... While working in a freezer like temperature environment.
Oh, and she didn't got any compensations.
The meat industry as a whole.
This is a significant part of a large picture as to why there’s a declining birth rate in Japan. Overworked and yet still underpaid leads to less time and money for people to even consider starting a family. Japanese people aren’t loners by choice, the work culture made them that way.
Wealth has never correlated with people having children, it's why the excuse of people not having kids because they're too rich/poor keeps flipping.
@@ZontarDow I did include the word "AND" in-between overworked AND underpaid, and less time AND money. Even if money is out of the equation, just being overworked to near death doesn't help motivate anyone from getting married then starting a family, let alone raising a child.
@@ffenixrising again, it's two unrelated subjects which is why you see the collapse in birth rates everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, regardless of wealth or time to raise children that's available.
Society hasn't felt enough pain to talk about the real source, not yet. Though because of their social structure Japan is one of the countries that will course correct faster then most when the time society acknowledges the source finally arrives.
Low birthrate is common to almost all developed countries. Italy n Spain are lower than Japan while Korea is the lowest. The US and Germany are little higher than Japan just due to numerous immigrants.
And economic stagnation.
Working for Japanese companies is the pits. As an American who worked for Toyota, I’d have to say it was shockingly absurd in illegal labor practices, bullying, nepotism, racism, sexism, etc. Don’t do it.
However Toyota did improve work conditions in Californian GM facilities, see NUMMI.
@@diamondfailer11 Japanese apply the same mentality to their employees as they did in WW2 prison labor camps!
Ditto
It's everywhere in America
Tesla is even worse. Tesla is probably the worst company in the world to work.
A friend of mine was an upper engineer in North America Toyota and walked out when he wasn't given a day off when his wife prematurely gave birth to twins. Prior to this he was anti-union but now he works for government. He will never drive a Toyota.
Wow, that should be illegal...
After Fukushima I buy nothing Japanese
@@richardscathouse Do you also not buy anything American because of Three Mile Island?
@@Nyxoticnomiconthat’s a good one that people don’t learn about
Stupid logic, he choose that life
Honorable mentions:
Bigmotor, for doing all sorts of scummy things to get customers to buy repairs and insurance for cars
Japan Beverage - forcing employees to pass a quiz to earn time off and regularly forcing up to 100+ hours of overtime
Nijisanji - LOL
Believe it or not the last one actually got a lot of support from their Chinese fanbase, thinking it was the talent’s fault. Typical “you get what you put up with”
Big Motors made it to place 13 on the list.
What about Nijisanji? Genuinely very curious
@@zaccorpseman7366 well, the chinese workforce is the same ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i kinda low-key hoping the third company was on the list NGL
@@konichivalue Look up Nijisanji vs Selen Tatsuki/Dokibird.
My number #1 black companies they call in Japan....Gaming/Animation studios. Seriously mentally taxing works without set limits.. just deadlines. My friend son works for JC Staff and the poor guy is totally bald compared to his dad looks just as old as us.
Recently dated a Japanese lady from Japan and its exactly as you say. Mandatory OT, going on vacational leave period isnt really much of a vacation, the company will antagonize you if you dont bring something back for going on leave, NO TYPE OF FLEXIBILITY, mandatory fun when they just want to go home, sloppy schedules etc
None of these really surprise me. Japan has a bunch of problems in work culture and has been stealing some practices from american work culture that makes them worse. Especially contractor culture and retail culture.
I will say that JR East surprised me.
Oh, Japanese work culture is far, far faaaaar worse than American work cultlure.
Source; American that worked in 4 Japanese companies in Japan and 2 American ones.
@@kmo20794 Oh definitely. I have only worked for japanese companies in a remote basis(they refused the work visa) but its really obvious to see the problems. I only meant they are taking on some american business habits that make japanese companies worse(and they are already bad tendencies in american companies) the outsourcing issue in japanese business is becoming a problem since it upends how japanese work culture works already. The fact that job changes make you look really bad in interviews but they dont aknowledge that it was not your choice, the contract work not being considered a 'real job' in japanese companies despite contract jobs becoming more common is becoming a real problem there.
Source: college roommate is a hiring manager in japan and has to argue with Hiring staff constantly.
Retail is a nightmare in America. Basically if you are desperate enough to take a job without concern for current wges or working conditions or having to spend a big chunk of your income on looking good on the job, then retail awaits. You can't live on vague pie-in-the-sky promises.
Honestly the Japanese workers only have themselves to blame. Japan is facing a severe labor shortage, the perfect condition for workers to fight for better rights and pay. Yet due to some misguided notion of “loyalty” this is not happening.
It's a bit more complected than that. First of all, Japanese companies are still reluctant to hire "quitters" even if they have a labor shortage. Secondly, salaries can actually go down if you switch jobs because you're seen as an entry level employee again, even with many years of experience in the field. This is changing, mostly thanks to foreign companies swooping up talet with vastly superior salaries, but most Japanese employees still value job security over high salaries which is what almost every Japanese company provides in droves
These companies have the most complaints, not the worst environments. And it's easy to tell: people can't complain when they're dead or over abused. In this top 5 there's none of the main "death by overwork" rankers, like the senior healthcare companies.
i agree taking complaints as KPI doesnt give the full picture: when i worked as rescuer in ambulance, i was not that concerned when the victim of an accident was screaming or yelling, problem starts when the victim has no more energy to even talk or give feedback.
That is were the real worst work environments starts, and believe me they are not in office/retail workjob like the ones in this list.
Culture is the #1 problem in Japan. . Creativity is suppressed. It won’t thrive unless the system breaks down as it did after the war or something equivalent happens to society. But having said that the situation elsewhere in the world isn’t that great either due to extreme greed.
No worse than anywhere else
@@richardscathouse if you’re talking about greed, Japan is much less greedier than the USA.
Its everywhere, even the individualistic cultures of west also has a culture problem
@ it does exist elsewhere but it’s particularly strong in Japan as far as entrepreneurial efforts go. The dominance of the conglomerates are stifling.
Japanese workers especially the blue collar ones suffered the most.And worst of all,they suffered in silence with their lips zipped
Seeing those salarymen all wasted on the train was funny when I first got to japan but it ended up being pretty sad by the end. Makes me really question how bad their work life is, because that's not normal. I remember one guy on the Fukotoshin line, dressed very sharp and had a clean look to him, he boards the train and his eyes can't stay open and he's stumbling around falling on people, the other passengers started pushing him around and eventually he just lied down in front of the train doors all passed out and people were stepping over him. He seemed mentally drained on top of being hammered.
I was in Tokyo last week for one week. So we went by train a lot even during rush hours. We saw so many (old) people sleeping there all looking wasted "to the moon". My first thought when I saw some of these people they might be suicidal. 😬
I was surprised not to see Uniqlo, Mitsubishi or Dentsu in the top 5.
Plenty of "black companies" in Japan, so picking just 5 must have been difficult.
Uniqlo is really questionable, so is Mitsubishi. I’m thinking more about Dentsu because it’s both a filming workplace nightmare and a trademark+copyright bully at the same time.
@@SlapstickGenius23Mitsubishi is responsible for what happened at Hashima Island (or most commonly known as Gunkanjima). Imagine 5,000+ people got forcefully evacuated from the area, just because the coal mines were not becoming feasible because of a recent law. They only got to leave with only mostly the clothes on their back, and were mostly relocated to Hokkaido with worse working and living conditions.
If JR East workers go on strike, how many weeks would there need to be no train service before management capitulates and reverses the 20% pay cut?
Tokyo would collapse in a day... Hence, I do think it would be illegal to do this.
@@konichivalueSo...less than one week before management surrenders? It's not like the workers could operate the trains from jail.
@@Random1208You're forgetting that Japan ain't a western, individualistic country. "Whatever you do, do not cause trouble for others" is what we're taught from young age. I legit can't imagine more than 1 person in 10,000, no, 100,000, who'd be able to participate in an even which will cause utter chaos with a clean consciousness. Just to get a raise. Eff everyone else. ... Nah. Ain't happening.
The amount of social anger directed at the workers on strike would drive them to end themselves. No joke. People will be furious at them. Do you really think enough employees are willing to become public enemies number one for a raise?
@@konichivalue Terrorists: "WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN"
If Japan is a bit like Germany in this case then there would be always train service to some extend. German workers went on strikes every few weeks in the last year but they have to maintain an emergency schedule. There are also workers who are not a part of the labour union. This means they do not take part on strikes with their co workers.
Im filipino and I have worked with 3 different japanese construction companies namely Sumisetsu Philippines (Sumitomo in Japan), Taisei Qatar, Modair Manila (Tonets in Japan). I can honestly say that the work environment really depends on the management. Japanese people as we know are hard workers but it really depends on the management and the your Japanese superior if they will abuse you or not.
P.S. Japanese companies tend to really pay well and are known for being legal in all aspects. They respect the law and they as much as much as possible tend to abide by itt.
that's because those Japanese companies are operating outside Japan. they can't make a mess outside their home country but in their home country they'll run it in their own terms and rigid rules
Johnny & Associates is also among the worst places to work in Japan. The late founder Johnny Kitagawa had sexually abused hundreds of men from the 1970s to the 2010s. As many as 478 people have accused him of sexual misconduct. Sadly, justice can never be truly served, as Kitagawa died in 2019.
Johnny was a Japanese American and yet he had tremendous power over Japanese corporations who relied on his company to supply bodies. Its too bad he never had a chance to do a tell all from his perspective of Japanese executives, their companies, and how he manipulated them.
And Japan's economic stagnation is catching up. The youth are despairing over an economy that shows no results and is producing many "Hikikomori".
Customs that seem insane in the US and Europe are common sense in Japan. As a Japanese, we sometimes envy the working environment in the West.
Japan is too right wing. They actively oppose left wing reforms. You did this.
@@Anomalyy666 Im neutral, but I know that right and left have many problems.
This is what is called natural selection. Japan's people work more than almost any country, yet they are falling behind. They are burning through their people until they run out. And a collapse will come. But it is hard to have sympathy despite knowing where it lead.
as a current employee of foreign banking industry in Osaka. This is true but our working environment is really different if our boss or director told us that the overtime is until 17:30 then its only 17:30. After that he told us to go home
This is the same in America working for retail, fast food, anything, and it’s low pay, nothing changes, dealing with tons of customer complaints and not even able to support yourself with one job you have to have multiple jobs, you have to pick a job that you can deal with or you can set your own hours
I used to love visiting Yodobashi Camera when I was young. Nowadays, I can only be in there for less than 30 mins before the crowd, loudspeaker, and the THEME SONG drive me crazy.
No wonder isekai anime is on the rise.
In every western country
❤ Truck-Kun
Same applies to American JPN companies
damn foreal?
Japanese companies "oh no, we are in a shortage of employees", also Japanese companies "I wanna hire someone at FAANG level, who gonna work for 12 hours a day for 3-5 million yen/year". Also, they gonna count your seniority not judging your actual knowledge and skills, but how many years you are working and how old you are. So, the best option is to avoid traditional Japanese companies, and if you see requirements such as "JLPTN1/N2", need to be prepared that this is typical Japanese working environment. Made huge mistake moving here. In terms of opportunities better go to Europe or USA instead
I'm only 4 minutes in, and Yodobashi Camera sounds like working in door-to-door sales in America. You know people don't want what you're selling, but if you don't push the sale you make no money and you get berated for being lazy and uncommitted.
Mappa studios: I'm you
Mappa hires mostly freelancers. They have few employees working in great conditions for the market they are in.
Most anime studios are horrible for animators to work at. KyoAni is the most notable exception to this rule.
Hello. 😊Thank you for introducing Japan. Our standard is someone who can work 12 to 24 hours a day. We are looking for people who can tolerate low wages. If you don't mind, please come and work.
In Indonesia employee works 8 hours a day and get 12 days paid leaves.If you work 24 hours a day then you don't have time to sleep.Lack of sleep is bad for your health.
Anycolor should be on the list, The work environment was so toxic that one of its talents almost ended her life...twice
And that was just February...
Johnny’s Inc, though now defunct, is still the worst entertainment company for both mainstream workers and talents in Japanese History. It’s depressing!
The good news? Some of its icons, such as Hiromi Go and Takuya Kimura, have become success stories in their own right, with the Fukuoka born star writing his own songs (and being the older Japanese equivalent of Ricky Martin, yeah!) as well as pop maven Shizuka Kudo’s hubby starring in many tv shows and movies.
The work culture in Japan is generally severely strict. I worked for a black-listed company for 8 years. I have over 100 unbelievable stories to tell. All staff were forced to work all National Holidays with no extra pay. I never received a salary increase or bonus in 8 years. Also, if I was sick, we were forced to use our limited 10 vacation days as sick days.
Thanks for making this video, it was informative and concise. I would have liked to learn more about your methodology in ranking the companies, as there might be other factors to consider. For example, larger companies will naturally have more complaints simply due to having more workers, and using a complaints-per-employee metric would help adjust for that. I also worry that some work cultures are so bad that employees fear making a complaint at all, and would never be seen by a monitoring service. I understand that there was limited data to work with for this video, since Alarmbox only showed 3009 complaints over 16k+ companies, not a lot to work with.
Thank you for your insightful comments! In creating the rankings, I used data from Alarm Box to assess work-related complaints from only larger institutions. Their methodology focused on the volume of negative feedback, with an average of about 3 per company. However, those that topped the rankings had significantly more negative feedback than this average.
You're right about larger companies likely having more complaints simply due to their size, a factor Alarm Box didn't adjust for. Plus, it's possible that the worst work cultures didn't show up in our rankings because they're smaller or because managers might be monitoring and suppressing feedback. However, it's safe to say that the companies listed in the rankings didn’t end up there by accident.
Kind of funny that the backing track for the Yodobashi Camera section of the video is actually the Bic Camera theme song (a modified version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic).
Finally someone notices! Yes, and very proud to have modified to sound more in line with their working practices 😨
People worldwide need to rise against these brutal work conditions; I've almost died several times working for corporations in the United States
What would happen if everybody in Japan quits their overworked jobs and stayed home ?
Hikkikomori? 😂😂😂
You get shamed. Everyone will hate you. Your reputation will be very low. No one will want to be with you. Even your wife may divorce you due to that. The company boss will phone your wife to find out what is wrong with you, etc. Pure hell as you get pushed out of society.
@@senju2024 sounds wonderful
The worst are the Japanese "Black Companies' where overwork is the standard, but the pay is low and the benefits are few.
Is there even any place in Japan where work life balance exists? 😂
Yes, in response to government initiatives and demographic shifts, many Japanese companies have actively improved work-life balance by adopting flexible work schedules, promoting remote work, and enhancing on-site wellness programs. However, the companies on this list does not fall into that category...
@@konichivalue damn remote work? honestly surprised me
White companies (of course, the opposite of black companies)
And probably freelance workers. Their careers aren't as stable but they do have good work-life balance
The stock footage at around 11:10 isn’t JR East. It literally says Keisei on the train, another rail company.
Could you a do a video on 5 good modern companies to work for in Japan? This one is kind of depressing.
I will when I find trustworthy data on that. As you might have guessed, companies do anything to be seen as a great place to work, which is why reliable data can be hard to come by.
Most of us don’t need to worry much because those companies mentioned won’t accept foreigners anyway.
However,most do have subsidiaries or divisions in other countries.
Transcosmos and Yodobashi Camera hire tons of foreigners. Nissay's IT department has many foreigners too
Have you ever been to Japan? There are tons of non-Japanese working in retail.
@@birdman4565 This October will become my 9th year living in Japan. I know what I am talking about.
@@nikkosr888 I've lived in Japan a lot longer than that. Perhaps you live in the inaka, but in the big cities there are TONS of foreigners working in shops. Don't embarrass yourself any further.
Worst company to work is actual 7-11, winning black company award for consecutive years. I believe their conbini food are seasoned with the soul of their employee.
The problems of working conditions in Japan are not only the fault of Japanese management, but also the workers. The cause of these problems is that Japanese workers haven't fought hard enough for workers' rights. However, things are getting better than before and they will continue to improve.
Speaking as an Aussie train fanatic, JR seems a bit more tame compared to the US railroads that use PSR
Great place to visit, lousy place to work. Both Mrs. Rebo and I are happier living in Melbourne, Aus.
Oh and if I had to work in Yodabashi or Bic Camera I’d go postal having to hear the advertising jingle blaring out every 30 seconds in the stores. Japan is so odd in that you can’t talk in the train but it’s fine to be assaulted with noise in the streets.
Don Quixote is another one where the same jingle blares ad nauseam. I don't know how the staff can bear it.
As a japanese i recommend to not work for rakuten.
What about those Haken Gaisya?
I got a lot of emails from that kind of recruitment company to come to work in Japan.
This is a ridiculous ranking. This survey company which conducts the survey every year, simply tallies the number of complaints posted by company employees and ranks them in order of highest to lowest. In other words larger companies with more employees are more likely to appear in the rankings. In fact, it is always the large companies that make the list. These rankings aren't at all reliable as to whether a company really has a bad labor environment or not.
Number 5 using the same tune that the international workers of the world use as an anthem for workers solidarity and international unionism is insane
These companies pretty much sound like working in the movie industry - so if you wish for something similar and you live in the US or Europe... you don't need to go all the way to Japan to enjoy that sort of lifestyle.
I think those men sitting or sleeping on the ground were drunk and/or have missed their last train. For my understanding it is a norm in Japan.
No wonder why nobody wants to have children. The whole country is to be blamed.
Finally, union membership is picking up again in Japan. Organise and fight for your rights.
Interesting content, but I wonder why the visuals are so Showa Era.
Dude, well done. I worked in Japan for years, mostly Tokyo, and I found this fascinating.
Thank you! Did you recognize many of the issues mentioned in these companies?
@@konichivalue there was a Japanese financial company about 15 years ago in Tokyo, during freshmen (new hires) training, the freshmen were yelled at and kicked. I did not see the kicks, but a colleague of almost 20 years told me the story in great detail. Needless to say, he was stunned when it occurred 😬 But that was a very extreme case, I had never experience anything like that with other Japanese companies.
The average annual working hours in Japan is 1,608 hours and in the US it is 1,811 hours.
While Japan is below the OECD average, the US has some of the longest working hours in the world.
What's more, surprisingly, 50% of young people in the US have second jobs due to financial difficulties,
so it's possible that these people are not included in the above statistics.
It's almost unheard of in Japan to work two or more jobs.
What's more, it's an outrageous society in which there are homeless people who have jobs.
Dentsu should be top 1. In general press/sales/marketing agencies are the absolute worst
According to classical economic theory, if labour is short the workforce should be able to demand improvements in pay and conditions. Yet somehow that hasn't happened much in Japan.
Because people who created "classical economy theory" were a bunch of fools, who oversimplified complex stuff, and it has nothing to do with the way how the real system works.
Go read the works of Keynes for example, in his case, he talks about the "effective demand" and his solution is to give money away when it is needed.
Most of countries have used his "theory" for decades, which led them to huge governmental debts, without any sign of improvement.
The reason is simple, if there is no need, then just giving cash won't lead to anything. You need both things, an unfulfilled need and cash/economic means to afford it to keep demand stable or grow.
You would think that this common sense would be obvious even for a fifth grader, and yet, you have a bunch of morons with Phd's, who ignored this for decades.
So much to say about "classical economics theories" and the economists in general.
Hello, i'm looking for the name of the song played with flute in the first part, it reminds me a song I heard in Japan but I never found it
It's called "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Yodobashi Camera adapts the melody to their theme song which is probably where you heard it in Japan
@@chawaphonnonthapan9027 It's a recorder, surely. The song is also known as "John Brown's Body", and originates in the US.
@KonichiValue - I really like you video. I am shocked about JR East.
Can you do a video on the following:
1) The Best Company to work for in Japan and why (benefits, superb employee satisfaction rating, etc)
2) Most enjoyable Millennial Corporations to work for in Japan.
As someone who worked in Japan before... you're gonna be very hard-pressed to find one in Japan. If you do, you're very lucky if you can get into foreign companies in Japan who don't acquire too much Japanese bad mentality, ethics, mannerisms & behavioural problems. Other than foreign companies, everywhere in Japan, it is hard to escape the negative effects much, especially the vertical hierarchy system. Even the best companies has its downsides i.e. negative complaints for some of the best companies still exists, but it is under the radar, due to suppression from higher management authority who don't want the truth to spread out.
I am thinking about it, but it's honestly really hard to find reliable info on the best companies in Japan to work for. If you look at regular lists www.openwork.jp/award/, recruitment companies rank really high, which just seems like they know how to game the system...
@@rebeccaliew2247 in other words, it is better to own a business than be an employee. That is, if you can start your own business.
Are you not worried about blowback by way of slander from the companies mentioned? I am assuming you have the figures and stats to back the statements?
I do, and since Japan has one of the lowest English proficiency levels in the world, I'd be honored if one of these companies' few English speakers found and reviewed this entire video😅
Thank you for your post about black labor in Japan. From a Japanese perspective, the companies ranked are not far off the mark, but not at the core. Not a single land transportation or warehousing industry is in the list. I am relieved that from a foreigner's perspective, the true darkness of Japanese companies has not yet been exposed.
Question: What's with the white chalk around those white collar workers who were sleeping/ knocked out?
Kind of an artistic license, like saying this person literally dropped dead from overwork (chalk outlines are used for dead bodies).
This footage is from the documentary 'Salaryman,' which I supported through their Indiegogo campaign back in 2017. The complete documentary was released in 2022, and you can view it here: www.journeyman.tv/film/8368.
@@konichivalue thank you :)
Aw man, I live in Tokyo and I always loved buying from Yodobashi😣 Very disappointed they suck as a company.
Too bad, they are everywhere also...
Damn this sucks
The analysis has a major flaw - companies in the list are some of the largest employers and with the largest customer facing staff so of course more staff more complaints. And no it should not stop anyone from shopping at Yodobashi, which sometimes seems to have more staff than colustomers or Neon or fantastic JR East. This is a sensationalist video which deserves thumbs down.
The footage in the outro is cool, where's it from?
It's from the channel TRNGL (ua-cam.com/video/fxyxUAFRNSI/v-deo.html). They've just started making a full footage collection on Japan!
Is there a flipside? The best companies to work for in Japan? My mother worked for a small family run plastics factory. They were super nice. But this was in 1980. The exception.
what's the percentage ratio of complaints vs quantity of employees?
they might have the highest number of complaints bec. they have the highest number of employees..
if there's a company that only has 1000 work force and 900 of them have complaints then that's the worst one by ratio..
You're absolutely right. This ranking is based on the number of complaints, so smaller companies with higher ratios might not appear. What’s interesting though is that most companies on the list aren’t the largest in their sector. For example, Yodobashi Camera is #4 but far smaller than Yamada Denki or Bic Camera. Nissay Insurance is much smaller than Japan's top three insurers, and while AEON is huge, its competitors didn’t make the top 20. JR East is an exception as it’s the biggest in its field
The reason Japanese companies get away with poor treatment of employees, is because the system does not allow quitting and joining a different firm. So people are pretty much captive where they first get hired.
I live in Kyoto for a year right now, and I can say: they worry too much about random, useless things and ignore real problems.
And something that stuck with me is: people here think they are the best and this is very complicated as it creates some huge social problems among tourists, people who live here and those who study, for example.
Damn, you should really watch my video on why Kyoto is doomed too
The JR situation is very similar for almost all of Japan.
Pride over Salary
Seniority over performance
And with already abismal.salaries, it's no wonder that nobody in their 20s-30s can afford to have children
That's what women in the workplace usually do 😢
My husband was a workaholic he worked up the day before died and had a meeting in ICU the day before.
Don't worry. Tesla bots will fix the worker shortage.
Why is the song “blood on gory” army airborne song being played in the background on a Japanese video.
How about pharmaceutical and medical company ? Is it any better ?
The marketing firm Dentsu was legendary for it's terrible treatment of employees and a few cases of "kuroshi" or "overwork death."
It’s been changed a lot. People usually leaves company before 19:00.
There are still many fucked up companies but much less than 5th ago.
This is not only the case in Japan, those who open businesses in Indonesia also apply the same work system as in Japan and this is very, very bad for employees.
The work environment in Yodobashi sounds like what you'd experience working for GameStop.
9:18 the JR east don’t manage the busiest bullet Train that is operated by JR Tokai.
Actually it's operated by JR Central, but JR East run the busiest stations on the route
@@konichivalue May be the station but not the Shinkansen
@@taka1416 actually some of the Shinkansens too. All the ones that stop by Atami are run by JR East
@@konichivalue Even if it is true, they are not run the busiest bullet train, as you mentioned in the video, with such short section of with some kodama.
My friend works for JR East... It was so bad that he barely slept more than 2 hours for 2 or 3 week.. his only day off would be to sleep the whole day and sometimes being called back to work. also, Hospital staffs , nurses and beauty palors. many small companies are often in the shadows..
I quit my last job, because our boss had us working up to 100 hours a week. Oh, and this included weekends. In his eyes it was no problem. (But he is kind of detached from reality in any case). It was highly illegal and if the authorities found out he could have received a hefty fine. But now it's a moot point, because last I heard he managed to run the business into the ground. He never could make sound decisions sometimes.
過労死するほど働いている人はこの二十年でめっきり減ったと思うよ…
しかしヨドバシのラインアップが古すぎ
これらの面白いのは自分の國はそうではないと思っていることです。何の事かはこめが消されるので書きませんが滑稽です。あなたの国も同じか日本以上かもしれませんそれか既に…
Ngl its overgeneralization to say japan has bad working ethic there are still companies who treat they employees well
There have been studies that show that japanese employees in general(across all fields) have lower work performance than most other nations. The key reasons were lack of sleep, poor work life balance, and poor diet(linked to the work life balance issue). So no it is not an overgeneralization. Alot of these problems are endemic to Japanese work culture. Mostly office work though.
@@BOYVIRGO666 sometimes i can also say america is even worst with work life balance lets not forget that americans have more jobs in a single day as well as people there get fired in masses in favor of profit and america there reporeded more harrassment abuse and discrimination
@@lordtraxroy Eh thats not a work culture thing. thats bad management practices. different things. And no, no american company reports worse average rates of abuse than many japanese companies. some have it bad, but its generally not AS bad as japanese companies. Mostly because worker protections in america about sexual harassment are sort of better.
@@lordtraxroy America also encourages job switching as opposed to Japan where even if you get treated bad or are paid bad you are still expected to stick around to hopefully get better pay. Seniority in Japan is preferred over experience so if you leave a job, you will start at the very bottom again no matter what type of experience you had in the past.
Indeed, some companies like DISCO have successfully harnessed Japanese work culture and ethics to enhance productivity. However, the companies on this list definitely do not fall into that category.
I worked for a credit card company in Japan for years. 13 hour shifts were very common and not all overtime was paid. I only went home by 11pm because my security cards turned off then. Arrived at work by 7am to do 2 hours of prep work without pay to start the day. I remember seeing one guy get pushed outside while still on his office chair to a waiting ambulance due to a mental breakdown. One of my coworkers would break down crying in one of the storage rooms sometimes. I was one of the businessmen that had passed out outside which is common, and in front of a police station near the train station no less. They never said anything but a concerned lady woke me up and was nicely concerned about me. We had a lot of jokes at work about never being able to take holidays and found it funny when we were granted more for years of service when we weren’t able to take them anyway. Wednesday was declared a no-overtime day to make up for no holidays. We still stayed to show we weren’t weak. I do miss the fact that everyone worked hard and would never refuse to do work unlike the West. I still carry the hard work mentality with me today which is why I lock horns with people where I currently work. I can’t help it…everyone can always do better. I plan to move back again in the future because I can no longer tolerate what I see as a lazy work culture here in the West. In case you were wondering, I was hospitalized once due to overwork but I wouldn’t change anything. This is all I know. In my job interviews I ask that they take away my holidays and benefits and instead pay me more. Wasn’t like I was going to use them anyway. During a job interview in Japan, that is the last time you can negotiate your salary. It will always stay the same after that.
It is an intersting story you tell, but I wonder what the results of such hard work was... Japan still has one of the lowest credit card penetrations in the developed world and innovation has all but stagnated in most industries. I've worked in Sweden for many years and can wholeheartedly say that Swedes are much lazier than Japanese people, but at least they are smart and lazy. Swedish people will do everything to work less which often leads to innovative solutions to reduce work and stress. I do not think most of the innovations we see from Sweden could be replicated in Japan due to the fact that working hard is favored over working smart...
I wonder my self how long a Japanese must to work to survive in Japan,is like China or India where people work like slaves but Japan take it to a new level,overworking is something aceptable for Japanese people like if been slave of work could be something good.😅
Why is a Japanese commercial in English
First thing that came to mind when I saw the thumbnail for this video was "EMOTIONAL DAMAGE !!!"
I'm not saying the companies you covered in the video are in any way good, but the way you seem to have chosen them is somewhat flawed. You said you ranked them by absolute number of complaints on that platform. But you should have ranked them by the ratio of complaints received in a limited time (say over the last year, 2 years, or such) over the number of employees.
If a company only has 100 workers but received 30 complaints in the last year, that may be worse than a huge one like Yodobashi or JR that may have 10,000s of employees, has been in operation for decades, and received 1000s of complaints over the years. IMO.
Also, I hope you don't live and work in Japan, because making a video like this is 100% defamation, over there, and they WILL sue you.
The data I've used is robust, gathered by Alarm Box, through the media giant Diamond News, not through a simple survey but by analyzing online posts for complaints, work styles, news stories, and scandals that is given a score based on the frequency weighted the size of the company. While the data originates from one company, Alarm Box's methodology is wide-ranging and thorough, spanning across 16,633 companies. One critique is that it is a profit driven company, and hence they do not publish their full methodology online, so don't trust my list blindly. However, it is safe to assume that none of the companies on it are companies you want to work for.
Also, what you can do to get more proof is to cross check it with the Japanese Glassdoor = Open Work. None of the companies on my list have a score above 2.9 and some are closer to 1. Sure, some companies have even lower ranking, but Open work has the issue of being quite heavily developer focused meaning companies with unhappy developers are performing abnormally bad.
You can read more and see the links of the data here ($) : www.konichivalue.com/p/top-11-worst-companies-to-work-for
The poor man’s bic camera theme song is hilarious 😂
How these companies are still in business is astounding!
And they wonder why the birth rate declined. I was pretty much a millionaire in Japan because of the exchange rate but I dressed very casually most of the time. The passive aggression from the typical Tokyo male was mind boggling. A great society needs social mobility.
JR east is seeking to operate almost every railroads automatically in the near future. Company says this is because of labor shortage, but what real happeneing is they send old employees to the group small retailing companies to cut the human cost.
The sole idea of spending regular working hours endlessly listening to songs like bikku camera or donky ...kills me...could never work for them, let alone the convenience stores with the never stopping sound of the doors 😖
Great appearances and convenience instead of results and sustainability, also to help people to Justifty and even protect all the serious flaws in this nation that are supposed to be addressed instead, today there is a government public subsidy to keep the good jobs in the national territory, but if corporations does not want to be behind, and most of the Japanese money are ending up in related overseas investments, names like JT, and Sony already transferred full departments abroad.
First, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being a long-term subscriber!
I share your perspective that appearances should not eclipse the necessity for sustainable results. However, it is also noteworthy that some companies, like DISCO with their P-Wise system, have innovatively leveraged Japan's strong work ethic to build remarkable structures that admirably combine efficiency with employee well-being.
And when it comes to investments, TSMC's decision to set up shop in Kumamoto-completing a fabrication plant in a brisk 18 months compared to a much lengthier timeline in Arizona (like 10+ years...)-speaks volumes about Japan's fiscal robustness and prowess in tech. This move is contrasted with JT and Sony reallocating departments internationally, yet it underscores Japan's potential to offer a stable and highly competent environment for business growth.
While there is room for reform, these examples indicate that Japan retains the potential to evolve from within.
You can add "Nijisanji" to those black company list too
NICE VIDEO.
Hey there’s misinformation in this video. You keep mentioning JR East is a bad company to work for but you keep using video footages of the Tokaido Shinkansen which is owned and operated by JR Central. These two corporations are separate companies and should not be mixed up.
I clarified this in a previous comment, but I'll do it again here :)
Most of the footage is actually from JNA, the predicessor that later became JR East and JR Central (and all the other JR companies). Also, even if JR Central run the shinkansen trains, JR East is actually responsible for the major passager stations along the route, most notably Tokyo, Shinagawa and Yokohama station. The companies do in fact have a profit sharing agreement in the Tokaido line. Lastly, all shinkansen trains that stop at Atami are partly run by JR East.
@@konichivalue you also showed footage of Keisei electric railway. They are not JR either.
Who is old enough to remember when graduate students and the world's business were reading about Japanese management? Remember Theory Z? What happened?
Fav Japanese worker leave destination? Aokigahara Forest!