Working long hours to move up the job ladder is a lower priority for newly employed graduates in the nation, according to a recent survey published by the Japan Productivity Center (JPC).
The 50th edition of the annual research, released Thursday, showed that over 40 percent of young hires work in order to "live an interesting life" — a roughly 15 point increase from 20 years ago — while only 10.3 percent of new hires indicated that they aimed to secure a role as company president — a record low in the survey's history.
The results are part of a decades-long trend of new graduates placing a stronger emphasis on maintaining a work-life balance, in a clear departure from perceptions of past generations who put in long hours to move up the corporate hierarchy.