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JAPAN COUNTS DEATHS CAUSED BY WORKING HOURS
Japan Has A Word For Dying From Overwork
Karoshi Was First Used In 1978
It Named Deaths From Strokes And Heart Attacks
Japanese Law Now Includes Work Driven Suicide Too
Labor Inspectors Decide Whether Overwork Caused The Death
Monthly Overtime Hours Are The Main Evidence
Families Have Fought Those Rulings For Decades
This Part Covers How A Country Started Counting
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OKAY BACK FROM THE NIGHT SHIFT 🌃
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THE WORD JAPAN NEEDED 🗾
Tetsunojo Uehata Presented Seventeen Cases In 1978
He Reported Them To An Industrial Health Meeting
Seven Were Compensated As Occupational Disease
Ten Were Not
The Term Is Sociomedical Rather Than Medical
Strokes And Heart Attacks Are What Appear On Records
Heavy Workload Is Argued To Have Aggravated Them
A Book Called Karoshi Followed In 1982
Uehata Was One Of Its Three Authors
Karoshi Became A Social Problem In The Bubble Economy
Lawyers Organized Around It In 1988
They Founded A National Defense Counsel For Victims
Doctors Joined Them To Open A Karoshi Hotline
Requests Came From Families Of The Dead
Compensation Requires Proving The Hours Worked
Employers Hold The Records That Prove Them
Lawyers Helped Families File Those Claims
Karoshi Covers Deaths And Lasting Disability
Work Driven Suicide Is Counted As A Separate Claim Type
Both Are Published Every Year Now
Neither Existed As A Statistic In 1978
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THE HOURS THAT COUNT AS PROOF ⏱️
Japan Sets Numerical Standards For Karoshi Claims
Inspectors Look At The Months Before The Event
One Hundred Hours In The Final Month Is One Threshold
Eighty Hours A Month Over Two To Six Months Is Another
Those Figures Are Known As The Karoshi Line
The Numbers Work As Evidence Rather Than Diagnosis
Matsuri Takahashi Joined Dentsu In April 2015
Dentsu Is The Largest Advertising Agency In Japan
She Was Twenty Four Years Old
Inspectors Found 105 Hours Of Overtime In One Month
She Died By Suicide That December
The Mita Labor Standards Office Ruled It Karoshi
Her Hours Exceeded The Company Union Agreement
Three Other Employees Had Been Worked Past It Too
Dentsu's President Announced His Resignation In December 2016
Prosecutors Charged The Company
A Tokyo Court Fined Dentsu 500,000 Yen In 2017
That Came To Around Four Thousand Four Hundred Dollars
Dentsu Paid 2.4 Billion Yen In Back Overtime
Politicians Responded To The Case With New Legislation
An Overtime Cap Passed Two Years Later
The Counting Had Started Four Years Earlier
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WHAT THE LAW CHANGED ⚖️
Japan Passed A Prevention Act In June 2014
It Requires The Government To Report To The Diet
A White Paper Has Appeared Every Year Since 2016
Compensation Claims Are Published Inside It
The 2025 Edition Reported On Fiscal 2024
Private Sector Workers Filed 3,780 Mental Disorder Claims
Approvals Came To 1,055
That Total Has Risen Every Year Since 2019
Eighty Eight Involved Suicide Or Attempted Suicide
Brain And Heart Claims Numbered 1,030
Inspectors Approved 241 Of Them
Sixty Seven Involved A Death
Recognized Cases Are Not The Same As Total Deaths
Only Claims Filed And Approved Appear In The Count
Counting Was Not The Only Response
A Reform Law Followed In June 2018
Overtime Was Capped At Forty Five Hours A Month
Three Hundred Sixty Hours Became The Annual Limit
Busy Periods Must Stay Under One Hundred Hours
The Annual Ceiling In Those Cases Is 720
Averages Cannot Exceed Eighty Hours A Month
Large Employers Came Under It In April 2019
Smaller Firms Followed A Year Later
Criminal Penalties Apply To Employers Who Breach It
A Legal Ceiling Did Not End The Claims
