Why Don’t Japanese Workers Know How to Take Vacations?

Written By: guyjin on March 3, 2010 No Comment

One of the most frustrating parts of living in Japan, especially if you work in a Japanese office, is the fact that 125 million people take their vacations all at the same time. And short ones at that. If you are a foreigner, you may get away with asking for a long vacation at an irregular time of the year, but if you are a regular Japanese office worker, such requests are commonly frowned upon.

The national government has announced that it wants to address the problem of congestion that happens when everyone takes vacations at the same time, especially at ‘Golden Week’ and ‘Obon’ – by designating different holiday periods during the spring and autumn. Apparently the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (as if he didn’t have enough on his plate with such an extensive portfolio) Maehara Seiji is looking at a plan to spread Golden Week and Obon holidays over five blocs of five day holidays. The new system could be ready to start in 2011, and according to current plans the spring holidays would start in the south, and then move north in blocks of 5 days, so that the whole country aren’t on holiday at the same time. In the autumn, the holidays would begin in the north, and work their way south. The actual number of holidays would not change, they would just be shifted to different times.

Personally, I don’t see this solving that many problems. Because the holidays would be the same for everyone in the same area, people living in areas like Kanto (Tokyo/Yokohama/Chiba etc.) and Kansai (Osaka/Kyoto etc.) would all still be on holiday at the same time, so localized congestion would be virtually the same as it is now. There would still be the same number of people crowding into local airports and train stations, for example, and the mad rush on the highways to come back into the metro area from outside areas at the end of the holidays would be identical as well.

Aside from all that, surely the country would be better served by, rather than having the government tell everyone when they should go on vacation, encouraging people to use their own discretion and make their own plans… That may sound like a radical idea. Indeed, it is a concept that many Japanese workers are not very familiar with.

In Australia, as with most other countries, when you sign a work contract, you negotiate with your employer for certain pay, work conditions, and benefits. These are collectively considered your compensation for working, and include a certain number of days per year of vacation. Typically this will be 3-4 weeks per year. In Japan, by law, workers are also entitled to 3-4 weeks of vacation time per year (in addition to national holidays). Most work contracts include this number of vacation days. But rather than being considered part of a worker’s compensation, they are considered inconveniences. I’ve spoken to hundreds of office workers, and the argument I hear over and over again is that if someone takes a vacation during normal business times, everyone else has to do their work for them, and that puts people out. Unfortunately this logic is never extended to its logical conclusion – that when the other people in the office take their vacations, you will have to do their work, so it all evens out. In most Japanese offices, nobody wants to be the first to cause a disturbance, so rather than everyone being able to enjoy their vacations and covering for each other until it’s their turn, they just all give up their vacations and keep to the status quo…

If Maehara wants to reduce congestion and boost the tourism industry in the country, he will make a big deal of the fact that so many Japanese office workers are entitled, by law, to holidays that they never get to take because of cultural constraints. He will make an effort to make it more socially acceptable to ask for a 10 day vacation, and for people to not feel so damn guilty about leaving everyone else in the office when they do so. Surprisingly, this would have the added benefit of increasing productivity throughout Japan. So many office workers get burned out and never have a chance to recharge their batteries. Because even if they get 5 days off over Golden Week or Obon, they are surrounded by 125 million other people that are also trying to ‘relax’. Needless to say, that’s not very relaxing….