A Japanese construction worker committed suicide after being made to work more than 190 hours of overtime in a single month.
The 23-year-old had been working on the new Tokyo Olympic Stadium, before his body was found in April this year, and the government’s labour bureau has now ruled that his death was caused by overwork.
This comes just days after it was revealed that the death of a 31-year-old journalist from heart-failure was caused by her working 159 hours of overtime in one month.
‘Karoshi’: The unnamed 23-year-old had been made to clock more than 190 hours of overtime in a single month while working on the new Olympic Stadium in Tokyo (pictured)
The unnamed construction worker had been employed by a contractor on the capital’s new Olympic Stadium – a project Tokyo authorities are rushing to finish in time for the 2020 games.
He went missing in early March, leaving a note saying he had ‘reached the physical and mental limit’, after working a total of 190 hours and 18 minutes overtime in the month before.
His body was found in the central Japan mountains in April, several weeks after his disappearance.
The official labour bureau has now concluded he had become mentally ill ‘due to excessively long working hours at the Olympic stadium’, and his family are entitled do compensation.
In a statement released by his family’s lawyer, his parents thanked the labour office for the ruling, but said they were ‘extremely heartbroken’ they could not save his son.
Tragedy: Japanese journalist Miwa Sado suffered a heartfailure in 2014, after doing 159 hours of overtime in a month
‘The sorrow that we will never see his smile again will not be healed for the rest of our lives,’ they said.
The ruling follows the revelation that a political journalist for the country’s national broadcaster, had worked herself to death.
Miwa Sado, a political journalist for the Japan’s national broadcaster NHK, suffered a heart failure in July 2013.
In a single month, she had logged 159 hours of overtime, and had taken just two days off.
A government inquest ruled that it was linked to excessive overtime, but her employer only made the ruling public this week, bowing to pressure from Miss Sado’s parents to take action to prevent a recurrence.
Japan has some of the longest working hours in the world, with many companies considering regular overtime mandatory.
People dying after working extreme hours, either through suicide or disease such as heart failure, is so common that there is a term for it in the Japanese language: ‘karoshi’, literally meaning ‘death from overwork’.
Last week, a Tokyo court ordered Japan’s biggest advertising agency Dentsu to pay a 500,000 yen ($4,445) fine for allowing its employees to work excessive overtime.
Dentsu’s head resigned in December in response to the suicide of a young employee, Matsuri Takahashi, who killed herself after logging more than 100 hours of overtime a month.
Her death generated nationwide headlines, prompting the government to come up with a plan asking employers to limit overtime to a maximum of 100 hours per month. But critics say this is still too high.