While Tokyo's governor Yuriko Koike has urged the city's 13.5 million residents to telework where possible until April 12, and major Japanese companies such as Honda, Toyota and Nissan have asked staff to work from home, many employees are still commuting into the capital, where subway trains are busy during rush hour.
It's a similar story all across Japan, where about 80% of companies do not have the ability to let their employees telework, according to 2019 government data.
[...]
Underpinning this is Japan's notorious hard-work culture. A 2016 government study found that one in five employees was at risk of working themselves to death. The country even has its own word for it: "karoshi," or death by overwork, which is defined as employees working so hard that they die from stress-related diseases -- or become so depressed that they kill themselves.
[...]
The fax machine, for example, remains a fixture in many offices, and people still use the company stamp to give official documents a seal of approval. In Japan, personal and company stamps are often used instead of electronic or handwritten signatures.
[...]
Many employees don't have laptops they can take home, Kopp said, and companies do not have VPNs or remote access to their servers, meaning things can only be accessed in person at the office.
To accelerate change as the coronavirus crisis continues, Japan's Ministry of Labor is offering grants of up to $77,000 to help small and medium-sized companies prepare for teleworking, said Misaki Togoshi, a spokeswoman at the Japanese Teleworking Association.
[...]
Another barrier is that a quarter of Japan's population is aged 65 and over. Many still occupy senior positions and are not known for being tech savvy. In 2018, for example, the country's then 68-year-old cybersecurity minister admitted he had never used a computer in his professional life.
[...]
In many places, governments have led by example. In Hong Kong, for instance, the government announced that civil servants would work from home when it asked private businesses to let employees work remotely.
Japan has not done that. While some government employees are teleworking, many are still going into the office.
From the article:
[...]
[...]
[...]
[...]
[...]