Why Japan's Gen Z is 'quiet quitting' work

DW ^ | 23 May 2025 | Julian Ryall

[anthropocene_x]

In a nation that has long been synonymous with working hard and showing unswerving loyalty to an employer, more and more Japanese people are "quiet quitting" their jobs.

A growing number of Japanese are choosing to clock in at work exactly on time and leave as soon as they can.

For 26-year-old Issei, the answer is straightforward: He wants more time to pursue the things he enjoys.

"I don't hate my job and I know I have to work to pay my rent and bills, but I would much rather be meeting up with my friends, traveling or listening to live music," said Issei.

"I know that my grandfather and even my parents' generation thought they had no choice but to work hard and earn more money, but I do not understand that way of thinking," he said.

"A lot of young people saw their parents sacrifice their lives to a company, putting in many, many hours of overtime and effectively giving up on their private life," said Sumie Kawakami, a lecturer at Yamanashi Gakuin University "They have figured out that is not what they want."

"In the past, an employer would pay a fair wage and provide benefits so people stayed with the same company all the way until retirement," she told DW.

"But that is no longer the case; companies are trying to cut costs," she added.

In 1998, there were 32,863 suicides in Japan, with many linked to brutally long working hours and workplace pressure. The total figure for suicides remained above the 30,000 threshold for the next 14 years, but has been gradually declining since. In 2024, some 20,320 people died by their own hand, the second-lowest figure since 1978, when statistics were first compiled.

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TOPICS: Japan
KEYWORDS: japan

[anthropocene_x]

Snowflakes!

[Fai Mao]

I have no issue with people who refuse unpaid overtime

[hanamizu]

As I understand it, the unwritten rule for Japanese salarymen is that you cannot leave work until your boss leaves work. And he cannot leave until his boss leaves and so on up the food chain. And, no, you aren’t paid for the extra hours that system entails.

[Fai Mao]

The same rule in HK. It is evil there as well.

[pepsi_junkie]

"I know that my grandfather and even my parents' generation thought they had no choice but to work hard and earn more money, but I do not understand that way of thinking," he said.

Hint: what do grandparents and parents have in common?

Pursue your travel, someday maybe you'll join the club they are in and then you'll understand.

[T.B. Yoits]

what do grandparents and parents have in common?

They both inherited from the great-grandparents but saddled the grandchildren with debt.

[ransomnote]

One of their former Ministers said that Japan’s health has suffered terribly - they are all on their 7th Covid19 booster. No mention is made internationally when drastic reduction in child births or low employment participation is discussed.

[Jonty30]

Typically, these men aren’t really working either. They just sit at the desk until their supervisor clocks out.

[lightman]

Nothing wrong with “working to the rule”!

[VanShuyten]

Scare story. There are so few young Japanese that they can pretty much choose how they work. Industrial work is good, but not as reliable as during the boom, so there are a lot of young Japanese starting their own businesses in niche areas, thinking that they might have more control over their own employment.

[Myrddin]

For the last 33 1/2 years my employer has insisted that I keep my worked time accurate to 15 minute intervals. Work must be tracked by the contract and time worked on behalf of the customer. The timecard is signed at the end of the week and verified against authorized contracts. Recording time and NOT doing productive work is considered prosecutable fraud. Especially not good if the customer is DoD and the employee is cleared. It's an honest and exacting workplace. The concept of sitting at a desk and doing nothing is totally foreign to me. I've had assignments at a startup that had me at my desk at 8 AM and leaving the office at 11 PM with a sack lunch at my desk to avoid loss of critical development time.

[Ge0ffrey]

Arriving and leaving ontime is not quitting.

[tumblindice]

Thinking, “Should I go the forest at the base of Mount Fuji, and jeet myself”?

[Jonty30]

Corporate America used Japanese propaganda to convince Americans to work harder at the office.

[Secret Agent Man]

I would tend to think you’re being sarcastic here.

If not, you don’t appear to know a lot about Japanese work culture.

[Myrddin]

Corporate America used Japanese propaganda to convince Americans to work harder at the office.

When I was an hourly wage earner at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour and Radio Shack, I clocked in at the start of the shift and out at the end. I had no concern for what was happening at the workplace outside of my assigned shift. It's was still that way after college with an hourly field service engineer position doing marine electronics. At PacBell, it was salaried with fixed start/stop times and no particular accountability beyond working for the company on internal projects. When I moved to my current company, there was a significant change in focus. My customer was external and the ability to keep contract money coming in was dependent on a happy customer. My problem solving didn't start/stop with the daily schedule. It became customer issue focused with the intent to find solutions as quickly and correctly as possible. That hasn't changed in over 33 years. In the same time interval, my wife worked her 4 x 10 hour shifts dispatching police/fire/EMS. The nature of that work is sporadic and event driven. Handle a call and move on to the next one. Nothing hangs on for days or weeks to resolve.

My point is that job behavior is sensitive to the nature of the work. It sounds like a lot of the "jobs" that are referenced in the main thread are seat warming with low expectations.

[Organic Panic]

Welfare

[anthropocene_x]

Yes, being sarcastic @Secret Agent man

[Secret Agent Man]

Good I’m glad I read it right. Sometimes I can’t discern with just a comment/words (no face and voice inflection)

[alexander_busek]

As I understand it, the unwritten rule for Japanese salarymen is that you cannot leave work until your boss leaves work. And he cannot leave until his boss leaves and so on up the food chain.

But how does that work in a factory setting?

I mean: I understand how office workers can remain sitting at their desks long after quitting time - but how can, say, the third shift remain standing at their place on the assembly line, welding seams on an automobile chassis, or inspecting the motherboard in household appliances, or pouring molten glass into molds, when the next shift suddenly shows up?

Even if a plant has only a single shift, how can the workers continue performing their tasks past quitting time if even only a couple of workers leave their stations? Wouldn't the whole process break down if key personnel walk out?

Regards,