Tokyo to introduce four-day work week for government staff in push for parenthood

Tokyo is proposing a four-day work week for government employees as part of broader efforts to address Japan’s low birth rate.

The proposal, aimed at improving work-life balance, will allow civil servants to work fewer days while still meeting their monthly hour requirements, the city’s governor Yuriko Koike said.

Flexible working hours will also be offered to parents of young children.

“Lagging behind in women’s empowerment is Japan’s longstanding issue, and overcoming the status quo and making society more diverse and prosperous is key for our bright future,” Ms Koike said on Thursday. “We will start with thorough support for work-life balance by introducing a more flexible working hour system, such as three holidays per week.”

The governor said she plans to offer employees of the Tokyo Metropolitan government the option to work a shorter, four-day week starting April next year. Her administration intends to present a draft proposal for flexible working hours to the city assembly in 2025.

“We’ll keep reviewing our work styles flexibly so that nobody has to give up their careers due to life events such as childbirth and child care,” Ms Koike said on 3 December.

As Japan’s population continues to decline and labour shortages grow more severe, Ms Koike said her administration is seeking to strengthen support for families and improve social welfare benefits.

Japan is grappling with a demographic crisis as its population ages and the birth rate remains stubbornly low, a situation that the new prime minister Shigeru Ishiba has referred to as a “quiet emergency”.

He has pledged to implement policies to support families, including measures like flexible working hours.

Ms Koike also plans to launch a project aimed at boosting women’s participation called “Women in Action”, one component of which is the introduction of a partial vacation system for parents of children in first to third grades of elementary school.

According to the governor’s plan, government staff, excluding shift workers, can take up to three days off per week but they will still be required to complete 155 hours per month, Sachi Ikegami, Tokyo Metropolitan government official responsible for personnel affairs, said.

In October, Miyagi prefecture announced plans to extend its four-day work week option to all employees by 2026, according to The Japan Times.

The policy, currently available to those with childcare or caregiving responsibilities, allows a three-day weekend with supervisor approval.

Other regions, including Ibaraki, Chiba and Kuji, are adopting similar initiatives, the paper reported, to support work-life balance, childcare, caregiving and workforce retention.

“By realising a society in which workers can choose from a variety of working styles based on their circumstances, we aim to create a virtuous cycle of growth and distribution and enable each and every worker to have a better outlook for the future,” a Japanese website said of the campaign known as “hatarakikata kaikaku”, which means “innovating how we work”.

The concept of a shorter work week in Japan, where the government reports at least 54 deaths annually due to overwork, goes back to 2021.

Mainichi reported in August this year, citing data from the ministry of health, labour and welfare, that about 8 per cent of companies in the country allow employees to take three or more days off per week, while 7 per cent give workers the legally mandated one-day off.

A Gallup survey measuring employee engagement ranked Japan as having one of the lowest levels of worker engagement. Only about 6 per cent of Japanese respondents reported feeling engaged at work, compared to the global average of 23 per cent.