Around this time each year, millions of Americans are enjoying a three-day weekend heading into Memorial Day。
It’s one of just 10 national holidays for a country that prides itself on a world-renowned work ethic。
But in Japan, the country’s government just unveiled their 16th national holiday. So, is Japan a holiday happy nation compared to its American counterparts? Not exactly。
Officially beginning on August 11 2016, “Mountain Day” was ostensibly created to recognize Japan’s culturally significant mountainous regions. But The Diplomat reports that the holiday was actually most likely created to put a dent in Japan’s “overworked” population that largely refuses to use its government protected vacation time. A recent Wall Street Journal claims that the average Japanese worker only uses 8.6 of their paid vacation days each year。
"In Japan, there is of course paid vacation, but people don't take it," Seishiro Eto, a member of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party that led support for the new holiday, told the WSJ. "I hope with Mountain Day, people will be able to take more of their vacation."
By comparison, workers in the US use an average of 10 of their 14 paid vacation days each year. However, a 2013 “Vacation Deprivation Study” from Expedia.com says that still amounts to a staggering 577,212,000 unused annual vacation days in the US。
And the workaholic approach may not even be as effective as some think. After all, French workers have the largest amount of guaranteed time off of any major industrialized nation yet their worker productivity is also amongst the world’s highest。
“When you have a longer working day, at some point because you’re becoming tired, it decreases your productivity,” French economist Renaud Bourlès told BusinessWeek。
Nonetheless, mandatory vacation days may not be a perfect solution. The Diplomat notes that mandatory holidays can create headaches for a workforce all taking the day off together. In theory, when employees voluntarily choose their vacation days the dip in the workforce is more evenly distributed over the year. But when everyone is taking the same national holidays cities are left with congested roads and overbooked flights during what is meant as a window of relaxation。
In the US 77 percent of all private companies offer paid vacation and holidays although federal law does not require them to do so. That’s still better than Japan, where most workers are not paid for their mandatory holiday days off。
The concept of being overworked is so prevalent in Japan that the country has its own word for people who die of heart attacks and other ailments directly attributed to excessive labor – Karoshi. The word literally translates to mean “death from over work。”
In recent years, Karoshi has broadened its meaning to include Japanese “salarymen” who commit suicide as a result of the emotional distress from working too much and under uncertain conditions. A 2012 Pulitzer Center investigation outlined a scenario that might sound unsettlingly familiar to many American workers:
“With the recession of the 1990s, many Japanese companies departed from the tradition of lifetime employment and went through massive layoffs, replacing costly full-time workers with low-paid temporary workers who have no benefits or job security. As a result, salarymen increasingly work longer hours because of a shortage of manpower and the fear of losing jobs。”
【新聞快訊】
數(shù)以百萬計(jì)的美國人每年都會(huì)享受三天的美國陣亡將士紀(jì)念日(Memeorial Day)假期。
這是美國為數(shù)不多的10個(gè)全國性假日中的一個(gè)。美國一向以聞名世界的職業(yè)道德而自豪。
在日本，政府剛剛公布了第16個(gè)全國性假期。那么日本人是否和美國人一樣享受他們的假期呢?不見得。
從2016年8月11日正式開始實(shí)行的“游山日”假期表面上為了讓人們意識(shí)到日本山區(qū)的重要文化意義。但《外交家》網(wǎng)站報(bào)道稱，實(shí)際上，這個(gè)假期創(chuàng)建的最有可能的原因是為了減少日本的“加班”人口，因?yàn)檫@些人大[微博]多數(shù)都不愿使用受日本政府保護(hù)的休假時(shí)間。據(jù)《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》最近報(bào)道，平均一個(gè)日本員工每年只使用8.6天帶薪假期。
“在日本，肯定有帶薪休假，但人們都不休假，”日本自由民主黨成員Seishiro Eto對(duì)《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》說道。“他希望山一天，人們將能夠更大程度地利用他們的假期。”自由民主黨支持新設(shè)立的假期。
相比之下，美國工人每年平均使用10天帶薪休假(共14天)。不過，根據(jù)Expedia.com的2013年“假期剝奪研究”，仍然有多達(dá)5.7億多美國人未使用年假。
工作狂的工作方法可能并不像某些人認(rèn)為的那樣有效。要知道，法國工人擁有的假期比任何其他工業(yè)化大國的工人都多，但他們的生產(chǎn)力也是全世界遙遙領(lǐng)先的。
“當(dāng)你工作時(shí)間過長(zhǎng)時(shí)，到了一定時(shí)間點(diǎn)你會(huì)變得很累，從而你的工作效率也會(huì)下降，”法國經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家RenaudBourlès在《商業(yè)周刊》的文章中說道。
盡管如此，強(qiáng)制性休假可能不是一個(gè)完美的解決方案。《外交家》文章指出，讓所有員工強(qiáng)制休假也會(huì)引發(fā)一些讓人頭痛的問題。從理論上來看，如果讓雇員自愿選擇休假日期，就能保證勞動(dòng)力總量在一年內(nèi)不會(huì)產(chǎn)生較大波動(dòng)。但是，如果每個(gè)人都在全國性假期休假，城市道路將會(huì)擁堵，超額預(yù)訂的航班也會(huì)讓本應(yīng)放松的假期變得不輕松。
在美國，77%的私人企業(yè)里提供帶薪假期，盡管聯(lián)邦法律不要求他們這樣做。這仍比日本好一些，日本的大多數(shù)工人在強(qiáng)制性假期內(nèi)都沒有薪水。
在日本，加班的概念深入人心，日本有一個(gè)自創(chuàng)的詞匯用于指代死于心臟病和其他由過度工作引發(fā)的疾病——Karoshi(過勞死)。這個(gè)詞從字面翻譯，意思是“工作過多而死亡”。
近年來，過勞死意思更為廣泛，包括日本“上班族”(salarymen)由于工作過多或工作條件不穩(wěn)定因情緒困擾而自殺。2012年普利策中心調(diào)查提到了一個(gè)讓許多美國工人似曾相識(shí)的場(chǎng)景：
“由于20世紀(jì)90年代日本的經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退，日本的很多公司背離了傳統(tǒng)的終身雇傭制，開始了大幅裁員，以低工資的、沒有福利或勞保的臨時(shí)工代替成本高的全職工人。結(jié)果是，由于人手短缺的情況和失去工作崗位的恐懼，上班族工作的時(shí)間越來越長(zhǎng)了。”
