A friend of mine works at Amazon Japan. She's working 10-12 hrs a day, 6 days week. She gets paid no overtime. AFAIK that's illegal in Japan but here Amazon is doing it.
Not a big news, Amazon is a crap company exploiting its workers worldwide and creating a lot of externalities. If the practice is illegal, an employee could sue (and win) but that personal choice.
On the 10-12 hours, the concept of "work" in Japan is a big different than in the West, in particular because there seems to have almost no notion of productivity. I often see 4 people on a task that would be allocated to one worker in Europe, or 12 person cleaning the same square meter. That combined with perfectionism (again, with no notion of productivity) that if 1% improvement can be done with 300% effort they try to do it, is a perfect cocktail to raise the total "worked" hours.
And finally there is the bureaucracy. Today I spoke with someone about implementing an idea, where the implementation of the idea is literally sending an email. I spend 10 minutes explaining it. But that could not be done directly! No, that person need to consult her boss. How long this will take? Probably at least half an hour... 2 or 3 times more if there is back and forth with me through the intermediate person. How many "worked" hours does this represent in total? I plan on a least one man/hour. In my country: doing the task directly, which represents at least a 120 times better productivity...
Isn't it like a cultural thing over there where you're expected to work overtime and essentially kill yourself for your company? Might be dated info but I remember someone saying nobody even thinks about going home before the boss regardless of when they got in so the boss never has the chance to see them leave.
In Japanese employment, you can have a contract that pays you for overtime regardless of if you work it. Thus, in effect you don't get paid more for working more, but you are technically getting paid overtime by law.
