Japanese firm fined for excessive overtime
TOKYO - Japanese advertising firm Dentsu has been fined for making employees work excessive overtime, a practice that is widespread in the country.
On Friday, a Tokyo court ordered the company to pay 500,000 yen ($4,400; £3,380) for violating labour laws.
Dentsu's workplace culture has been scrutinised after young worker Matsuri Takahashi killed herself in 2015.
Death from overwork is a longstanding problem in Japan and even has its own word: karoshi.
Japanese authorities found that Ms Takahashi's excessive work - reported to have included 100 hours of overtime a month for some time before her death - led to her suicide.
The high-profile case led to renewed calls for changes to the country's notoriously long working hours and illegal unpaid overtime.
Scott North, Professor of Sociology at Osaka University graduate school of human sciences, said overwork is a "chronic problem" in Japan.
But he added the modest fine imposed on Dentsu, one of the country's largest advertising agencies, won't be much of a deterrent.
"You can see why the occasional death might be considered just a comparatively small cost of doing business, especially when contrasted with the labor costs that can be saved by having people work unpaid overtime," he told the BBC.
The problem was again highlighted last week, when public broadcaster NHK said authorities determined the death of reporter Miwa Sado in 2013 was caused by overwork. The 31-year-old died of heart failure.
A year after Ms Sado's death, local authorities concluded the political journalist clocked up to 159 hours of overtime a month. She only had two days off in the month leading up to her death.