Japan’s public broadcaster NHK has revealed that one of its reporters died from overwork.
Japan’s public broadcaster has revealed that one of its reporters died from overwork.
NHK said that labor officials had concluded that the 31-year-old political reporter died from heart failure caused by spending long hours on the job.
Japan, known for its ’salaryman‘ culture and punishing work hours, has struggled for years to tackle the impact of overwork on employees‘ health. A government study published last year found that one in five workers is at risk of working themselves to death.
Excessive hours are such a big problem that there’s even a Japanese word for death by overwork: karoshi .
According to a news story published by NHK, Miwa Sado had worked 159 hours of overtime in the month before her death.
The circumstances of Sado’s death in 2013 had not been made public until this week.
