The whole "salary man" thing just sounds depressing. I would suggest another name but I can't think of any.

Lets have a separate thread to talk about the working culture and life in Japan :) Maybe MMM can give some suggestions on how to clear up some myths and popular beliefs :)

Done
-MMM

Well, in some ways the salaryman life IS depressing. People were willing to give up a lot of time for work knowing that 1) they would be employed for life and 2) they would be well compensated.

Sadly, both those guarantees are crumbling, despite the tradition that working late into the night still goes on in many companies.

Being salaried means you are not paid by the hour, so you do not get paid for overtime.

Salarymen are my heroes.

WHOA... That is NOT correct.

Salaried means that you are paid a flat fee for the month, regardless of how many days of actual work there are, no reductions for holidays, etc. You receive a guaranteed amount of pay for the month even if there is a huge holiday break, etc.
Overtime is something completely different, and it IS paid. In the work contract, you generally agree to 8 hours of work each day for the salary. Anything above that is not included in the contract, and therefore must be dealt with outside of the salary... In other words, paid by hour.

Occasionally, some company will slip in "service overtime" into their contract, or try to do a loophole by not defining things properly in their contract - but that`s actually illegal these days.

My husband is a "salary man" and I assure you, he is paid very well for overtime - not to mention increases in his bonus if he does well.

Few comments. First, in regard to the above. I guess OT pay IS available in SOME jobs. But not all. My cousin works for a small advertisement company with no OT pay. Back in 2006, I arrived at his place around 1AM, he isn't home yet, he got home around 2 AM, and left for work again at 5:30AM. All that without any OT pay. He is a senior executive for the firm himself

As for the crumbling tradition. I may be wrong, but I think what crumbled isn't the tradition of working long hours, but the tradition of Long Hours = Life Long Job and good Compensation. Its just a fact today given the crazy economic situation globally.....

the word to put emphasis on here is "executive". companies have the right not to pay managers for overtime. so what is a manager? apparently McDonalds Japan had a somewhat different opinion from the courts here in japan since they were made to pay damages and overtime pay (or was it only overtime pay?) to employees that were hired as managers while not having the tasks of a manager and certainly not paid a manager's salary. overtime payment for non-managers is protected by law in japan (there might be exceptions for small companies, nyororin, pls fill in if u know, or anyone else for that matter)

i have friends that work long hours and i have friends that work more or less exactly eight hours a day. myself, i work on average about 9h a day, about the same as i worked before coming to japan

Obviously different people have different situations.

As a public school teacher, I was a salaried employee and was encouraged to go home at a certain time each day. Some of my colleagues grumbled when asked to take over certain club duties. The reason was it would add 1 to 3 hours to their average work day, with no increase in pay.

Let's also keep in mind that a salaryman's long day isn't always in the office. One real estate man I know spends 9 out of 10 days off golfing with his co-workers. He doesn't always want to, but it is basically a required function in his office. In winter they play in Kyushu. He has to pay for the bullet train, and the company only covers a bit of the hotel and club fees.

In some companies the boss or managers like to socialize with staff after work, sometimes with dinner, then barhopping. This can lead to long and late nights off the clock, but not being able to go home.

That's a drag. I hate being stuck somewhere and not able to leave. Happen's alot when I don't drive myself. I feel stranded.

If you had to guess, what percentage of Japan's work-force is considered "salary man"?

As it is illegal to not pay for overtime - it can only be done if the employee volunteers to do so.

So, no matter the level of pressure, etc - in the end, they could indeed opt to not volunteer to do so, and look around for another work place that doesn`t push them to break the law. If they are whining about having to work without pay - in the end, it is their own choice.

Of course, my colleagues were heavily pressured to volunteer by superiors to take on these extra duties.

So they could opt out to not volunteer, but even I was "strongly encouraged" to "volunteer" to help out a couple clubs during summer break. It was pretty clear to me that my "volunteering" was not an option if I wanted to have my yearly contract renewed. Illegal or not, it happens.

Obviously it happens - particularly when you`re in a weak position to begin with... But in my experience, most of the successful companies do NOT try that crap these days as there are more than enough companies out there who do not. And as changing companies no longer has the sort of stigma it had 20 years ago - companies try to be appealing to keep their good employees.

Of course - if that employee`s opinion of being a good worker includes volunteering left and right to impress their boss... I don`t think anyone is going to make them quit.

In the software industry, I`d say that 80% of companies now have stopped even allowing that sort of stuff though. It skews things to the point that it can actually push the company into financial danger. If you draw up a 見積り telling a customer that you can get something done in a week - and have your employees working 18 hour days to get that done... When the customer has something they need done ASAP, and want you to do the same amount of work in 4 days for double the pay.... It`s impossible, and you will lose that customer.

That is good to hear, and makes sense in the present financial climate, Nyororin.

The public school "industry" is on the opposite side of the spectrum, for sure. The dropping numbers of students mean the lack of need of new staff is an unfortunate reality. Many schools have been on hiring freezes for years now, and it is interesting for me to hear that the image of a "teacher" for modern Japanese youths is someone in their late 30s and above.

Just my 2 cents on the whole issue. I just so happen to be a salaryman myself, so here it goes:

As far as life-long employment goes, it is by no means guaranteed but i still feel it is more stable than in other parts of the world. I work in the financial industry, quite possibly the worst place to be these days, but, unlike my friends at US companies, I really don't worry about loosing my job. MMM alluded to it a bit in his last comment, but in Japan i feel you are far more likely to have a hiring freeze than actually see people got laid off. Of course that doesnt hold true for hourly/contract workers, but they don't really qualify as salaryman.

Regaring overtime, nyoririn got it spot on: you're guaranteed a monthly amount based with the expectation that you will work a set number of hours on each work day. Anything in excess of that becomes paid overtime. As far as "executives" are concerned, i'd like you to find me a country anywhere in the world where executive overtime pay is standard. Don't worry, i won't hold my breath waiting. Other people's comments about regular unpaid overtime also hold true: there are some things you have to do (or at least will be expected to do), particularly outside the office, that don't count. Office nomikai is a good example. Some nights you really just want to go home and rest, but if the boss wants to go out drinking, you will probably end up going too. And to the 二次会. And if you're really unlucky to the 三次会. But by no means is off the record work related activities like this are a japan-only thing.

The hours can certainly be long, but many companies (mine included) have recently made a point to let employees have the weekends off, barring major deadlines and such. I spend monday through friday making a living, then saturday and sunday enjoying the fruits of my labor. It's not easy, but that's why they call it work.

And, if you ask me, being a salaryman beats the hell out of being a fleeter any day of the week.

I read an article around a year ago. It spoke about Japans, "traditional" way of working, and said that it was bad. i.e. The part about people working overtime etc. Japan, as a whole is not very effective at work. It seems that only the BIG companies such as Sony, Nissan etc are effecient. The article explained that in most companies, people worked slowly during the day so that they may stay after their shift for overtime pay. This article was of course talking about office jobs where generally, there is overtime pay.

I think this article made a very good point. If I manage a team of people and I see that certain people are working overtime on a regular basis, I would hire someone else to help them. This way, if the employee is lazing about simply to get some extra cash by working later, this will stop as it wastes the company's money. And if he really is struggling and has too much work, his work load would ease and he could have a happier, healthier life. Over working yourself is never good! I know this because my brother is a workaholic. He usually works from 7am till midnight!