Leasing firm Orix Corp. plans to introduce a special allowance for employees who take more paid leave, hoping the step will help increase their performance.
The firm announced Wednesday that the allowance, ranging from ¥30,000 to ¥50,000, will be given to workers at its domestic group firms who take more than five paid holidays in succession, adding that the new system will begin in April.
The allowance will be given to each employee once a year. The Orix group has some 9,400 employees.
Along with the allowance, the company will also start slashing 20 minutes in daily working hours to seven, in contrast with the eight hours at most Japanese firms. Employees' monthly salary will stay the same, it added.
As a result, this would be equal to a 4.8 percent hourly pay raise, the company said.
Long work hours and less efficiency have been a long-standing problem at many Japanese companies.
Labor issues have been under the spotlight given the suicide of a young female employee at advertising agency Dentsu Inc. in one of the most prominent karoshi (death by overwork) cases in recent years.
A government white paper released in October said nearly 1 in 4 companies have admitted that some employees do more than 80 hours of overwork per month.