A familiar orange and green signboard glares in the pitch-dark, quiet street in a residential area. There, the owner of a 7-Eleven franchise store located in the suburbs of a small city in the Chubu region works the night shift every day by himself.
The owner, in his 40s, said he works 500 hours a month. He consulted with the Labor Standards Inspection Office, only to be told that it doesn’t deal with complaints from owners.
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