[samokan]

I work as a contractual IT engineer here in Japan for the past 7 years.

I have been to 3 different Japanese firms who deals with Hakken( contractual ) employees.

My first company requires us to work for 150-200hours per month. Our manager was very lenient with the number of hours per month as long as we have 8 hours/day. And we have overtime and paid leaves and it was very easy to take a leave of absence. Basically we follow the company rules of the current employer we are in.

The second one was hell. I have to work for a minimum of 180hours/per month, regardless of the number of vacation that month have. Imagine in May, when we have a week of holiday. I have to compute the rest of the days in the month to be able to get the minimum number of hours. If we go below that for whatever reason, our salary gets deducted. I wanted to quit after my first contract with them , but we made another arrangement and tried it but to no avail. I left them last March.

The third and current one, I am required to work 8hours/day but the company I am assigned takes precedence. So now I only work 7.3 hours/day. So far so good.

Different company have different rules. But it is usually 8hours/day.