Young Japanese man ‘died of overwork’

TOKYO: A Japanese sports official promised yesterday to work with the builder of a showpiece stadium for the 2020 Olympics to stamp out “death by overwork”, a label authorities applied last week to the suicide of a stadium worker.

The parents of the 23-yearold petitioned the government this year to recognise his suicide as karoshi – or “death by overwork” – with the media saying he had worked 200 hours of overtime a month before his death.

“To our regret, illegal overtime was recognised as a result of inspection by the labour ministry,” said Tadashi Mochizuki, director of stadium manager the Japan Sport Council (JSC), which is part of a joint venture with construction firm Taisei Corporation.

“We, JSC and Taisei, took it sincerely and we’ll do the utmost (to comply with the law) in proceeding with construction,” he said.

Authorities unveiled a model of the new stadium in the Japanese capital, which is set to be completed in November next year after construction began in December.

Japan’s fast-ageing society has left employers grappling with an acute labour shortage. It officially recognises two types of karoshi: cardiovascular illness linked to overwork and suicide due to mental stress related to work.

Employers face few curbs on overtime and pay, so more than a fifth of company staff exceeded a government over- time threshold of 80 hours a month, a white paper showed last year.

The trend was spotlighted by a high-profile death from overwork in 2015 at advertising giant Dentsu. Last week, public broadcaster NHK said a 31-year-old reporter had died four years ago of overwork.

To tackle the problem, the government plans sweeping reforms of job practices, including overtime caps and better pay for part-time and contract workers. – Reuters