Japan has stopped telling employers to keep overtime under 45 hours a month. I read all 2,010 comments — half of them were never answered by anyone
The loudest comment drew 4,175 presses. The comment that correctly explained what had actually changed, and pointed out that nobody asks whether the worker wants the overtime, drew three.
How the votes fell
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1 4175 ∕ 973 overtime looks different in every workplace, but if the blanket instruction goes, the worry is that the air on the floor will simply harden into work more. The strain of understaffing should not be absorbed by workers' patience. Even if the rules need to be more flexible, the original purpose — correcting long hours — must not drift. Protect workers' health and lives, not only what suits companies
- 2 3675 ∕ 327 staying late because you want the overtime pay is still understandable, as long as the work is actually moving. The problem is the overtime where nothing progresses, mistakes pile up, and colleagues get dragged into the corrections. In that state it would be better to send the person home to rest. The right people, at the right time, for as long as is needed — only then is overtime alive. Sitting in a company chair for a long time is not the same as working for a long time
- 3 1542 ∕ 133 the change was explained as a response to workers who said they wanted to work overtime, but what most of them want is not the extra hours, it is the extra pay. Base pay is so low that it produces a distorted demand for overtime. Before debating whether to lift the 45-hour line, build a system that raises wages themselves
- 4 1463 ∕ 162 does this really apply to every industry at once? Trucking and healthcare never fitted the 45-hour ceiling, but there are also industries where that ceiling was what protected employees' health. Business lobbies had their reasons for wanting the blanket instruction dropped. Unions, which are supposed to stand with the weaker side, keep losing strength while the employers' side stays very strong, and that is one reason the burden on ordinary people here is heavier than in other countries
- 5 1379 ∕ 186 some people are genuinely motivated, but others stay late only because everyone else does, and some stay for the overtime pay while chatting rather than working. It may be unrealistic, but with a minimum wage in place, a system that calculated pay from results as well as hours would let each person work in their own way and still be paid fairly
I read all 2,010 top-level comments. The buttons came to 21,635 presses of I relate against 5,756 of hmm — 79 to 21 — plus 1,391 presses of good point. In 246 comments, 12 percent of the thread, the objections outnumbered the agreement, and 66 percent of all agreement went to the top ten comments. But the 79 percent is not an approval rating for the change. The worried and the welcoming are both here, nodded at by different readers. Counted by subject, the largest single block is worry about the policy: 4,175 presses on one comment. Next comes overtime done for the money, 32 comments and 5,139 presses, 24 percent of the vote — though 5,054 of those presses sit on just two of them. Then: base pay is too low and wages should rise first, 64 comments and 1,878 presses, 9 percent; unpaid or unrecorded overtime, 178 comments and 1,169 presses, 5 percent; nothing will change anyway, 48 comments and 1,335 presses, 6 percent. What did not draw votes is sharper still. Comments naming the employer as the one at fault: four, 14 presses, 0.1 percent. Comments saying overtime should only happen on a manager's instruction or with prior approval: ten, 13 presses, 0.1 percent. Comments touching on whether the worker actually wants the overtime: 37, 218 presses, 1 percent. The quietest voices were the accurate ones. Seven comments correctly stated that the law had not changed; one of them drew 559 presses and the other six drew six presses between them. The one that went on to say that the new approach never asks whether the worker wants the hours drew three. Finally, my own reading against the votes. That people stay late for the money: correct — the second and third loudest comments say exactly that, 5,217 presses together, 24 percent of the vote. But the second says it is understandable when the work is moving, and the third puts the blame not on workers but on low base pay. That the 45-hour line changes nothing: also correct, 48 comments and 1,335 presses. Yet my claim that the employer is at fault drew four comments and 14 presses; my proposal that overtime should only happen on instruction drew ten comments and 13 presses; and my line about people who quote a salary that includes overtime selling their own time cheaply drew six comments and three presses. Neither where I placed the cause nor where I placed the cure got much of a press from this thread.
Here is what happened.
From 1 September, Japan's Labour Standards Inspection Offices stopped issuing the blanket instruction they had given employers for years: keep monthly overtime under 45 hours.
The law itself has not moved. If a company signs the standard agreement with its workers' representative, overtime up to 45 hours a month is permitted, and with a special clause attached it can go up to just under 100 hours. That frame is unchanged. What changed is how the inspectors lean on employers. Until now they told even companies sitting below the 100-hour line to bring people under 45 hours. From now on they will focus on whether the company has measures in place to protect employees' health.
A labour federation says the change "could encourage longer hours." The labour minister answered that it "does not alter the upper limits themselves" and that the ministry will "continue to press for the correction of long working hours."
Let me put my own reading down before I count anything. Overtime is supposed to be something your manager asks you to do, not something you do because you want the money, and I suspect a great many people in this country have that the wrong way round. When someone is asked what they earn and answers with a figure that includes overtime, I think they are selling their own hours cheaply without noticing. And if there is routinely so much work that the day cannot end on time, the company is at fault; if a company leans on people's need for money to get those hours out of them, the company is at fault there too. Stop overtime altogether, rebuild it so that it only happens when someone actually asks for it, and until then the 45-hour line can move wherever it likes and nothing will change. Because nobody involved thinks they are doing anything wrong.
That is what I believed walking in. The day after the story ran, I read all 2,010 top-level comments — the thread holds 2,606 including replies — and counted the buttons.
79 to 21, and once again it is not a verdict
The thread pressed "I relate" 21,635 times and "hmm" 5,756 times. On the face of it, 79 to 21. In 246 comments, 12 percent of the thread, the objections won.
But you cannot read that 79 as "79 percent approve of the change." Two opposite crowds are in here: people alarmed that the guardrail is being loosened, and people who think it should never have been there. The first group nods at the first group, the second at the second, and the sum happens to be 79 to 21. What the thread agreed with only appears once you count the contents.
Before I do that, though, there is one number I want on the table first.
Half of the room was never answered
Of the 2,010 comments, 1,053 — exactly half — received no agreement at all. Not one press. Widen it to two presses or fewer and you have 1,753 comments, 87 percent of the thread. At the other end, 66 percent of all 21,635 presses went to ten comments.
I went back and recounted the twenty-two threads I have read for this site. The share of comments that drew no agreement runs from 7.9 percent at the lowest to 70.6 percent at the highest, with the middle sitting around 35 percent. So 52 percent is on the high side, but for a Japanese comment thread it is entirely ordinary.
This is what the phrase "2,606 comments" actually contains. It is not 2,606 people talking. It is ten people being heard and a thousand people speaking into nothing. Every figure below — this many comments said X, drawing this many presses — should be read with that room in mind.
It also explains why I count two things rather than one. The number of comments tells you how many people thought something worth writing down; the number of presses tells you how many readers stopped to agree. Those two measures come apart constantly, and when they do, the gap is usually the interesting part. A subject that many people write about and almost nobody presses for is a subject the room considers settled. A subject that one person writes about and thousands press for is the sentence the room had been waiting to see written. Both happen in this thread, and I will point at them as they come.
The loudest voice was worried about the air, not the rules
4,175 presses. Roughly a fifth of everything the thread gave away went to this one comment.
Overtime looks different in every workplace, I know, but if the blanket instruction goes, I worry the air on the floor will simply harden into work more. I do not want the strain of understaffing absorbed by workers' patience. [...] I want more weight given to protecting workers' health and lives, not only to what suits companies.
残業の実態は職場ごとに違うとはいえ、一律指導をやめると、現場では結局もっと働けという空気が強まるのではと心配です。人手不足のしわ寄せが、働く人の我慢で埋められる形にはしてほしくありません。［…］企業の都合だけでなく、働く人の健康と生活を守る視点をもっと大事にしてほしいと思います。What is feared here is not a law and not a penalty. It is the air that says work more. The people who lose something when the instruction disappears are not the companies that obeyed it; they are the employees who could point at it when they wanted to say no. That reading drew 4,175 presses.
It also drew 973 objections, the largest pile of "hmm" anywhere in the thread. The loudest voice on the page is also the most argued-with.
The second loudest is not about the policy at all
Staying late because you want the overtime pay is, in itself, still understandable — as long as the work is genuinely moving. The problem is the overtime where nothing progresses, extra mistakes appear, and the people around you get pulled into fixing them. [...] The right people, at the right time, staying only as long as is needed. That is the only kind of overtime that is alive. Sitting in a company chair for a long time is not the same thing as working for a long time.
「残業代が欲しくて残業する」こと自体は、仕事がきちんと進んでいるのであれば、まだ理解できます。
問題なのは、仕事が進まないままダラダラと残り、余計なミスまで増やして、その残った仕事や修正に周囲まで巻き込まれるような残業です。
［…］必要な人が、必要なときに、必要なだけ残る。それで初めて「生きた残業」になるのだと思います。
長く会社の椅子に座っていることは、長く仕事をしていることは同じではありません。3,675 presses. Not the government, not the employer — the person two desks away who has not gone home.
This one stopped me, because I had walked in convinced that too many people stay late for the money. This writer puts a condition in front of that judgement: "as long as the work is genuinely moving." What is being condemned is not the motive. It is the unfinished work.
Comments dealing with overtime done for the pay came to 32 in all, drawing 5,139 presses, 24 percent of the vote. In fairness I should say that 5,054 of those presses sit on the two comments above. The remaining thirty drew 85 between them.
The third loudest moved the blame from people to wages
The change was explained as a response to workers who said they wanted overtime, but I suspect what most of them mean is not that they want the hours — they want the overtime pay. Base pay is fundamentally too low, and that is what produces this distorted demand for overtime. [...] The priority should be building a system that raises wages themselves.
今回の運用変更の際、「残業をしたいという労働者の意見を受けた」との説明がありましたが、実際は時間外まで働きたいのではなく「残業代（手当）が欲しい」という意味合いが大きい気がします。
根本的な基本給が低いために「残業したい」という歪んだニーズが生じていると思います。［…］まずは賃金そのものを引き上げる仕組み作りを優先すべきだと思います。1,542 presses. "They do not want the hours, they want the pay" is exactly what I thought. What follows it is not. I wrote that too many workers have this the wrong way round. This writer calls it a distorted demand and puts the cause on base pay that is too low to live on.
Comments arguing that base pay is the real problem: 64, drawing 1,878 presses, 9 percent. Comments about unpaid overtime and hours workers are not allowed to declare: 178, drawing 1,169 presses, 5 percent. That last group is the largest by number of comments in the whole thread and one of the smallest by votes. Nobody presses a button for something everybody already knows.
The other side is here too, and it is not small
Within limits, I think people with the stamina and the appetite for it should be free to work long hours without being held to 45. (I realise this runs against the mood of the day.) The bigger question is whether the work is being paid for properly. Wouldn't cracking down on unpaid overtime help far more people?
限度はあれど、体力がある人・やる気がある人は45時間に捉われずに長時間働いたって良いと思う。(世論には逆行しているかもしれないが)
より大きな問題なのは労働に対する対価を適正に払っているかどうか。サビ残取り締まった方が助かる人間が多いのでは？167 presses. The phrase this writer uses for unpaid overtime is a clipped, everyday one — hours that appear in neither the records nor the payslip.
This looks like the flat opposite of the loudest comment, and it lands in almost the same place. The trouble is not the length of the day; it is whether the day gets paid for. One writer is worried about the person who cannot refuse. The other is worried about the person who never gets paid. Add the two crowds together and you get 79 to 21.
What did not draw votes is the sharper finding
This is the part that surprised me.
Comments naming the employer as the one at fault — four of them, 14 presses. One tenth of one percent of the vote.
Comments saying overtime should only happen on a manager's instruction or with prior approval — ten, 13 presses. Also one tenth of one percent.
Comments touching on whether the worker actually wants the hours — 37, 218 presses. One percent.
Two of those three are the load-bearing parts of my own argument, so I want to be careful about what the numbers can and cannot prove. They do not show that this thread disagrees with me — a comment nobody sees is not a comment anyone rejected. What they show is narrower and still worth knowing: out of two thousand people given a free line to write anything they liked about overtime, only four reached for the employer as the villain, and only ten reached for the idea that overtime should require an instruction. Those framings were available to everyone in the room. Almost nobody picked them up.
In a room where half the voices draw nothing, small groups have to be read with care. Even so, one fact stands: none of those three appears anywhere in the top ten. What this thread nodded at, in bulk, was anxiety about the air in the workplace (4,175) and irritation at the desk nearby (3,675).
Marking my own reading against the votes
The parts I got right, first.
That plenty of people stay late for the money — right. The second and third loudest comments both say so, 5,217 presses between them, 24 percent of the vote. It is a live subject in Japan too.
That the 45-hour line changes nothing on its own — also right. Comments saying it is a dead letter, an empty formality, meaningless in practice: 48 of them, 1,335 presses, 6 percent, sitting just below the top of the thread.
Now the parts I got wrong, which I would rather write down than leave out.
"The company is at fault" got four comments and 14 presses. I put the cause on employers; this thread did not name them. The loudest comment does say "not only what suits companies," so the feeling is present — but nobody points.
"Rebuild it so overtime only happens on instruction" got ten comments and 13 presses. That was the repair I most wanted to argue for. Out of more than twenty thousand presses, it collected thirteen.
"Quoting a salary that includes overtime is selling your own time cheaply" got six comments and three presses — 0.0 percent. Almost nobody here talks that way.
Last time, on the Disney thread, my suggestion that students should pay a third of the price drew zero agreement across four comments. Twice in a row now, the place where I said "here is how to fix it" is the place the votes refuse to go. It seems I read causes tolerably well and cures badly, at least by the standards of a Japanese comment thread. I would like to remember that.
The quietest comment was the accurate one
Here is the smallest voice I found in the thread.
This change does not mean unlimited overtime beyond 45 hours, and the law has not changed. What is being revised is the practice of the inspection offices issuing blanket guidance purely on the grounds that 45 hours was exceeded. [...] Some people want to work more overtime and earn more; others do not want overtime at all. Respecting the first group matters, but under this new practice, whether the individual wants the hours is never considered at all. Separately from whether health can be protected, how do we prevent long hours that the person does not want? I think that piece has been left out.
今回の変更は、45時間を超えて残業し放題になるわけではなく、法律も変わっていません。45時間を超えたことだけを理由に労基署が一律指導する運用を見直すものです。
［…］「もっと残業して稼ぎたい」という人がいる一方で、残業をしたくない人もいます。前者の希望を尊重することは大切ですが、今回の運用では、そもそも本人が残業を望んでいるかどうかは考慮されません。
健康を守れるかどうかとは別に、本人が望まない長時間労働をどう防ぐのか。この点が抜け落ちているように思います。Three presses of agreement. One objection.
It begins by correcting the record: the law has not changed, only the inspectors' practice has. Seven comments in this thread got that right. One of them drew 559 presses; the other six drew six presses between them.
Then it asks the question the day was missing. The new approach never checks whether the worker wants the hours. It checks whether health is being protected. It checks whether the company has measures in place. Nobody asks, "do you want this overtime?"
It is worth sitting with how strange that gap is. The change taking effect that day was justified, in part, by the existence of people who say they want to work longer. Whether any particular employee is one of those people is exactly the thing the new practice does not look at — an inspector can confirm that a health check exists without ever learning whether the person having it asked for the hours. That is not a subtle objection. Thirty-seven comments touch on the same worry, drawing 218 presses between them. But only one of them gets the mechanism right first and then names the missing piece, and three readers agreed with it.
The 4,175-press worry at the top of the thread — that the air will harden into work more — is describing that same gap from the outside. One writer put it as a fear and collected 4,175. The other put it as a missing part of the mechanism and collected three. I have counted a thread before where the quietest line in a story about a 5-billion-yen box office turned out to be about day labour — but there, at least, the quiet line was heard. Here the button reached it three times.
For readers outside Japan
Something to take away.
In Japan, overtime pay is part of the monthly household budget for a very large number of people. Base pay does not cover the month, and the extra hours close the gap. Most of the voices in this thread are standing on that assumption, which is why "we are reducing overtime" reads here as "we are reducing your income." What changed on 1 September is not the law but the standard by which inspectors lean on employers. The ceilings are where they were: 45 hours a month by agreement, just under 100 with a special clause.
And there is the mood to know about. This thread was not especially angry at the government that loosened the rule, or at the employers who wanted it loosened. What it agreed with, in bulk, was worry about the atmosphere of a workplace and irritation at the colleague who stays late without finishing anything. Anger with a name attached stays quiet here — the same shape I found when ordinary people worried about the government's finances on its behalf in a thread about cutting the consumption tax.
Half of this room was never answered by anyone. And the single most accurate sentence written that day was somewhere in that half.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.