Organizers of the increasingly troubled 2025 Osaka Expo are requesting that the government exempt related construction work from a change in the labor law next year that will put a cap on overtime, according to recent media reports.
The move comes as the expo faces mounting concerns that construction, especially of pavilions for foreign nations, will not be completed on time for the scheduled opening of April 13, 2025. As of Friday, no foreign countries had formally submitted applications to construct their own pavilions, which has raised worries about whether there is now enough time to build them and questions about possible postponement.
But labor minister Katsunobu Kato said Friday that an exception to the upcoming legal change simply to cope with a heavy workload shouldn’t be allowed.