Young Workers in 2024 Coping with ¥180,000 Take-Home Pay in the Black Company Era

Another problem arises in such companies. They have a corporate culture that tries to settle everything on the basis of mentality. In this day and age, gut feelings are not acceptable, but salaries will not go up unless the company makes a profit, and it is impossible to swing what is not up one’s sleeve.

“There was a problem when a senior left the company. The issue was who would cover the senior’s workload. In the end, we divided the senior’s work among ourselves. The decision was made by our superiors, reasoning that if everyone shares the workload, we can manage somehow. When I was told, ‘It’s tough, but since everyone’s workload has increased, we’re in this together,’ I was really upset.”

In a normal company, when one person quits, a new person is hired to take over the work, but Mr. Sasaki’s company did not hire anyone new in order to cut labor costs.

However, Mr. Sasaki’s supervisor decided that it would not be a problem if the work that had been assigned to Mr. Sasaki’s seniors was allocated to the entire company, and the workload increased without a salary increase.

Other times, the workload increases due to a supervisor’s spontaneous comments. The day before a product delivery date, all-night overtime work was becoming a regular occurrence. When overnight overtime is required, all team members stay overnight as a rule, so they cannot take a day off except for funerals.

The lack of salary increases is due to other problems besides the company’s performance, according to Mr. Sasaki.

“Most of the people still remaining in that company are from the founding members. I think everyone is working tirelessly to keep the company from going under. Because of that, there’s no room to move up. The same person has been in the same position for over 10 years. As a result, there are no promotions, and achievements are not recognized. In other words, it’s a company that only needs soldiers to support it.”

Mr. Sasaki has given up on his current company and has decided to change jobs to another company in the same industry. The annual salary at his new company is 5.1 million yen, taking into account his previous experience. The fact that he was concurrently responsible for almost all of the company’s operations was highly regarded when he changed jobs, and his annual salary increased. Mr. Sasaki says he was satisfied with his new job.

Companies like the one where Mr. Sasaki worked are all over the world. One can only hope that the number of such companies will decrease.