A record number of Japanese firms have been ordered to compensate workers for unpaid overtime despite a recovery in the world's second largest economy, officials said Wednesday. The number of companies which paid overtime after being faulted by labour inspectors on unannounced visits rose 10 percent in the most recent business year to the highest since the statistics were first compiled in 2001.
The labour ministry said it ordered 1,679 firms to pay a total of 22.7 billion yen (194 million dollars) to 182,561 workers in the year ended in March. The average payout per person came to 120,000 yen, according to a ministry survey.
Makoto Kawazoe, secretary of Tokyo Young Contingent Workers' Union, said the figures showed Japan's working environment was imposing longer hours on workers. "Despite the brisk economy, companies are growing by profiting on what should be paid to workers," he said.
"But the figures are only the tip of iceberg," Kawazoe said. "In many cases for full-time workers, timecards exist only in name." "In one ironic case, a real estate agency 'promoted' an hourly waged part-timer to full-time so that the company could pay less," he said.
He pointed out that the 1,679 firms in the survey were only the ones that paid one million yen or more in compensation. "I wonder how many times more unpaid hours are potentially out there," Kawazoe said. The government says Japan is in the midst of its longest period of expansion since World War II as it recovers from recession in the 1990s.
But consumer spending has failed to pick up amid concerns that the new jobs being created are unstable and poorly paid. Japanese media listed various shady tactics used by companies to reduce overtime pay. One company manipulated employees' work hours by using computer software that automatically altered the overtime hours once they reached a certain level, the Mainichi Shimbun said.
Another company ordered workers to punch out at the end of their shift and then go to a company house to do overtime, the newspaper said. The ministry refused to disclose details of individual cases. "If we did, it could help companies come up with new ways to conceal overtime," said an official who declined to be named.