In Japan, the review of overtime hours (zangyo) is progressing, and attention is also gathering on Chinese social media.

On the 19th, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare announced that it will review, starting from September this year, the guidance it had uniformly requested from labor standards inspection offices to keep overtime within 45 hours per month. Overtime hours are limited to 45 hours per month if a "36 Agreement" has been concluded between the company and the worker, and can be extended to less than 100 hours per month if a "special clause" is added.

Labor standards inspection offices have uniformly guided companies to keep overtime within 45 hours per month, but this will be reviewed after September. It is said that there are requests from some companies and workers to increase overtime, and the aim is to respond to these. On the other hand, they will encourage companies that have not yet concluded a "36 Agreement" to do so, confirm whether measures are being taken to ensure employee health, and request that illegal long working hours are not conducted.

Regarding the relaxation of working hour regulations, it was indicated at the government's Japan Growth Strategy Council in July this year that the review of guidance by labor standards inspection offices would be implemented promptly.

In response to this report, a Chinese national residing in Japan explained the details of the review on China's social media platform Xiaohongshu (RED) in a post titled "Is Japan no longer strictly enforcing the 45-hour monthly overtime limit?" They explained, "Many people might think after seeing this news that Japanese companies will now openly make employees work nearly 100 hours of overtime, but that's not what it means. It is mainly a change in the supervisory approach, meaning that instead of simply focusing on 'whether 45 hours have been exceeded,' they will now more thoroughly check whether companies are properly implementing measures for employee health management and preventing overwork."

On the other hand, they wrote, "As a Chinese person working in Japan, I still have various feelings." They continued, "Japan has advocated for 'work style reform' for several years, but in reality, many industries are facing severe labor shortages. On one hand, they say 'don't work overtime,' while on the other, 'there aren't enough people.' How to ultimately balance these two conflicting ideas might be the real problem." They then asked, "On the condition that your salary is paid properly, how many hours of overtime would you accept in a month at most?"

In response to this post, users residing in Japan who perceived "overtime will increase" raised positive voices such as: "Good news for corporate slaves," "I'm happy. I'd be even happier if overtime pay increased," "If I could work unlimited overtime, I'd want to work so much that the company goes bankrupt, as long as the salary is paid properly," and "My basic salary is low. I can't live without working overtime."

On the other hand, negative voices were also heard, such as: "I don't want to work overtime. I don't want to turn all my time into money," "Not only does overtime not increase efficiency, but I think it will also lead to more people slacking off during regular work just to get overtime pay. It's better to work diligently for 8 hours every day. Work-life balance is important," "Leaving aside short durations, I doubt how much outcome such long hours of overtime can produce. Won't overtime affect regular work hours?" and "Once a loophole opens in the law, someone will always exploit it."

In addition, comments such as: "When I was young, 100 hours of overtime was normal," "(If overtime increases) young people might not be able to tolerate it," "The construction industry, in particular, has a lot of unpaid overtime," "In reality, there are some industries where overtime is unavoidable," "They say 'labor shortage,' but finding a job is difficult...", "They're desperate to drive out foreigners," "This is a conversation for after Japanese people improve their efficiency," and "The workload at Japanese companies is too small; hardly any overtime is needed. Try working at a Chinese company. Even with '996 (9 AM to 9 PM, 6 days a week),' you won't finish," were also seen.