[HN Gopher] Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k emp...
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Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees
Author : njacobs5074
Score : 210 points
Date : 2022-06-18 16:07 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (english.kyodonews.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (english.kyodonews.net)
| samfisher83 wrote:
| Ntt has 320k employees. I wonder what the other 290 will think?
| [deleted]
| mkl95 wrote:
| In Southern Europe NTT is mostly a bodyshop. Their target
| demographic is junior engineers willing to do unpaid overtime
| for abysmal pay. Pretty sure remote work doesn't make a big
| difference.
| drnonsense42 wrote:
| If you're doing a lot of extra hours, not having to commute
| and getting some peace makes a huge difference in making it
| sustainable.
| permalac wrote:
| But if you work for them in Barcelona the salary is still
| pretty bad.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| How bad is pretty bad?
| oblio wrote:
| I don't know about NTT, but salaries for software devs
| are really low in general. Think EUR30-40k per year. How
| FAANG are not leveraging such a poorly paid workforce in
| countries with a great climate, developed, safe, etc, I
| will never know.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Because any good talent leaves Japan immediately for the
| USA as soon as they can for better pay and a more relaxed
| life?
| ben_w wrote:
| I think the sort of person FAANG wants to hire, knows how
| much they can get from moving and has either already
| relocated or found remote work.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| They do. At least some of the FAANG have important
| software development offices in Japan.
| Arcanum-XIII wrote:
| Can confirm, having the dubious joy of working with them.
| grapeskin wrote:
| That's the reality for big Japanese tech companies.
|
| They pay you in reputation, and reputation doesn't transfer
| to other big corps since they see frequent job changes
| (sometimes capped at twice in a lifetime) as a red flag and
| won't hire people.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If the reputation has no utility for the employee, why
| would the employee accept payment in the form of
| reputation? Is the employee oblivious to the lack of
| utility of reputation?
| quartesixte wrote:
| Social reputation is still big in Japan.
|
| Reputation is also highly correlated with company
| stability in Japan.
|
| Such reputation buys you things like A) easier time
| attracting a future spouse B) respect in certain social
| circles and transactions, transferrable to your partner
| and children (yes this is a thing) C) a network of
| individuals also "smart and hardworking" like you
| pg_1234 wrote:
| F**k that, I'll take cash!
| geodel wrote:
| I mean of course. It is always preferable option if
| available.
| 55555 wrote:
| Reputation provides utility in other ways. For example,
| social status and respect from others.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There's a couple of things not mentioned here.
|
| Due to the more or less deflationary economy, Japanese
| wages have not increased for the better part of three
| decades. (Deflating prices mean that even with stagnant
| wages, you're still able to buy more.) Job hopping is
| unlikely to actually result in increased wages.
| (Inflation is now coming to Japan due to the general
| global inflation from the war in Ukraine, so that will be
| an interesting scenario to watch.)
|
| Japan is a heavily reputation based society. In the way
| that US uses credit score to determine a lot of things,
| Japan uses this sort of reputation as a proxy to
| determine eligibility for many things. As a general
| example, finding in apartment in Japan requires a
| guarantor (essentially a cosigner who agrees to act as a
| fallback option in case you can't pay) and landlords want
| a Japanese national person or entity to do it most of the
| time. https://blog.gaijinpot.com/what-is-a-rental-
| guarantor/
| rat9988 wrote:
| You need a guarantor in france too so I wouldn't say it's
| unique to japan.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Kind of makes me wonder why there hasn't been a brain drain
| from Japan like there has been from elsewhere in Asia and
| Europe to the various tech hubs. Is the culture just too
| difficult to leave behind? Yes, it is a G7 country with
| first world living standards but expatriates from other
| first world countries are not rare in the tech hubs.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Pretty closed culture, relatively bad at speaking
| English, and they are still very rich - closest "better"
| country to live is US.
| midasuni wrote:
| " The telecom company has said it is considering allowing all
| 320,000 employees of the NTT group worldwide to work remotely."
| lettergram wrote:
| I'm sure that'll help the already high levels of chronic
| loneliness in Japan...
| slimsag wrote:
| That's seems a quite naive/brash take.
|
| Isn't it the case that Japanese work culture, "stay until the
| boss leaves", is what contributed substantially to loneliness
| in Japan? A lack of work-life balance? It seems to me that
| remote work could lessen this effect greatly.
|
| Also, you seem to be assuming it will just lead to people
| working from home alone. Japanese housing is notoriously small,
| and cafes ever-popular, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to
| speculate that this could lead to a boom in working from cafes
| and co-working spaces. Unlike a majority of the rest of the
| world, too, Japan has far less urban sprawl - so going to such
| places is less of a hassle.
|
| Seems to me this would do the opposite of what you suggest.
| ehnto wrote:
| Maybe you mean suburban sprawl? Or maybe you just mean the
| urban area is less disjointed? Urban sprawl is exactly how I
| would characterize Japan, but maybe I just have the
| terminology wrong. It's actually one of the reasons I suspect
| such dense cities work so well, as the mixed zoning creates
| self serving blocks of commerce and residential. Like you've
| pointed out, it could actually make remote work a very
| vibrant lifestyle, full of coffee shops, cafes, regular faces
| and casual conversation.
|
| If I had to work remotely for the rest of my life, I'd choose
| Japan, so that I could walk out my front door and around the
| corner to pretty much anything I'll ever need. I can't do
| that in the suburbs, pretty much anything useful is a car
| journey away. I worked remotely from the suburbs for about 4
| years, and it was incredibly isolating. There was no-where to
| go that fit into even an hour long break.
| oblio wrote:
| > Maybe you mean suburban sprawl? Or maybe you just mean
| the urban area is less disjointed? Urban sprawl is exactly
| how I would characterize Japan, but maybe I just have the
| terminology wrong.
|
| No, he's right. Sprawl is inherently a negative term. Japan
| has large cities because you know, they can't put people in
| Manchuria (they've tried) or on the Moon, so they have to
| put them somewhere. So the most efficient way to house
| large numbers of people is in dense cities.
|
| The US is a great example of both urban sprawl (outside
| downtown, American cities have town to village population
| densities) and suburban sprawl. The worst of both worlds,
| really.
| [deleted]
| okdood64 wrote:
| > Isn't it the case that Japanese work culture, "stay until
| the boss leaves", is what contributed substantially to
| loneliness in Japan? A lack of work-life balance?
|
| I keep hearing this thrown around, and I have no reason not
| to believe it, as on paper it makes sense.
|
| But have there actually been studies around this?
| bin_bash wrote:
| I've never been there, but everything I hear about Japanese
| office culture sounds terrible: long hours, stodgy environment,
| forced participation in dangerous binge drinking.
|
| That said, pretty much everything else about Japanese culture
| seems awesome.
| benbristow wrote:
| > forced participation in dangerous binge drinking
|
| In the UK we just voluntarily participate in dangerous binge
| drinking
| DeathArrow wrote:
| That might tempt me move to UK. :)
| cptaj wrote:
| Yes, having more free time will definitely help people have a
| social life
| srvmshr wrote:
| How about thinking that this will give them an opportunity for
| some mental relaxation as well? I live in Tokyo. The commutes
| are hour long one-way on average. Maybe it will give them more
| time & mental energy to explore other things.
| [deleted]
| midasuni wrote:
| Clearly office work doesn't help with this. Perhaps the
| flexibility and the removal of the need for things like capsule
| hotels will help. Maybe towns outside of the large megacities
| will see a renaissance ad people under 65 will be living there.
| lettergram wrote:
| As someone who did just that (went remote, moved to a small
| town with a Bay Area salary). I can say it's amazing and
| highly recommend.
|
| That said, no one else I know chose it. You lose a lot of the
| city night life and niche things. Instead you gain space,
| more rural style hobbies, less diverse food (particularly if
| you eat out), etc.
|
| A lot of people aren't able to recognize the pros / cons of
| such a trade.
|
| For anyone reading, I recommend living in a suburban / rural
| location. Get out and take care of a big garden, go to local
| events and join a few clubs. Definitely a positive
| experience.
| ghaff wrote:
| I live about an hour outside a major Northeast city in an
| ex-urban/semi-rural location. (It's not really rural but
| I'm one of three houses on about 100+ acres of land and
| can't really see my neighbors at this time of year.)
|
| I find it's a decent compromise. I have space. I can take
| walks in the woods or easily drive to small mountain hikes.
| But I'm only about an hour to go in for live theater, a
| meal, etc. And there's nothing keeping me from going into
| town for a weekend if I wanted to.
| pengaru wrote:
| > less diverse food (particularly if you eat out)
|
| After spending a few years in a very rural part of CA while
| rebuilding my cabin, the lack of quality diverse organic
| produce I'd taken for granted in SF Bay area grocers is one
| of the biggest complaints I have.
|
| I haven't seen a Pomelo in a store for over 4 years now,
| let alone an organic one.
| filoleg wrote:
| How long ago did you make that switch? Asking because with
| things like that, there is always an amazing honeymoon
| period, but reality settles in a few years down the road.
|
| Not just talking about the urban=>rural switch
| specifically, but in the opposite direction as well, and
| when it comes to pretty much any major change of a similar
| nature in general.
| [deleted]
| thisiswrongggg wrote:
| Arcanum-XIII wrote:
| We could also say that you need the bay area salary to pay a
| colocation if you need to go into the office - that doesn't
| remedy the issue. I'm losing 2 hours per day in my car (with
| the added pollution for it). There's no decent solution to use
| public transport. At the office, I have the dubious joy of
| working on an open office - where I can't focus. So my job is
| not great. That's not to speak about the quality of the office
| ware (bad laptop, bad chair, bad screen, bad mouse...) I lose
| family time. I lose quality of life. I'm tired.
|
| Now let's look at my home office. I have a 40'' screen, an
| aeron chair, a nice laptop (MacBook m1), a good gamer mouse and
| mouse pad. All that without my time in the traffic jam. I'm
| refreshed, able to work better and my boss got more out of me
| due to this.
|
| Since I'm a freelance, all this is factored in my daily rate.
| For one, my employer has the dubious pleasure of having me sit
| on a stool in his office that he pays for. For the other, he
| doesn't observe me often, but get more quality effort out of
| me. So he lose. Every time.
|
| Let's be honest: I'm lucky I have a home office. I guess lot of
| people do like to go see their colleagues - and I'm glad for
| them. Now, can't we improve the situation so that everyone can
| choose to work the way they're happier?
| ghaff wrote:
| >Now, can't we improve the situation so that everyone can
| choose to work the way they're happier?
|
| One of the issues I hear is that, at many employers who are
| saying "Work wherever is most effective for you," a lot of
| offices are ghost towns. So you may see a handful of people,
| you're often hoteling, and the cafeteria is scaled back. So
| people who want to don't really have the option of going back
| to a pre-pandemic office.
|
| That said, I'm sure I'm in something of a bubble. The few
| times I've been driving near rush hour for some appointment,
| traffic has seemed to be pretty much pre-pandemic levels.
| tjpnz wrote:
| FWIW (and this _is_ in Japan) I 've worked for companies which
| would pay the same Tokyo salary regardless of where you lived -
| so long as you remain in the country. I knew people who
| relocated to Chiba and even Okinawa.
| bin_bash wrote:
| You're being downvoted because you smugly dismissed peoples
| opinions without offering your own.
| dehrmann wrote:
| They implied that companies with high-paid employees are ok
| with working remotely because it increases their talent pool
| to include places like South America. Why pay $200k for a US
| software engineer when you can get four in Brazil for the
| same price?
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Just say it if you got something to say, rather than this
| "hint: it's not what you think it is" shtick.
|
| If the argument is "companies will use remote work for their
| own benefits", no shit, that's what they've done with literally
| everything under the sun. It's not news companies are trying to
| socialize the risks and privatize the profits.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Good. As an oil importing country, their fuel consumption will
| keep going lower
| sofixa wrote:
| I really doubt many people in Japan commute by car.
| bin_bash wrote:
| They're one of the biggest importers of natural gas.
| Something has to run the Shinkansen.
| srvmshr wrote:
| Shinkansens run on electricity. Oil is mostly in the
| manufacturing and plastics industry, unlike other countries
| where domestic consumption is a significant share. (Tokyo
| power sector is mostly thermal and nuclear.)
| bin_bash wrote:
| They hardly produce any nuclear anymore. Natural gas is
| the largest source by far.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Japan
|
| EDIT: these numbers appear to be old, since 2019 they've
| tuned reactors back on and stopped relying on LNG as
| much. I can't find good numbers on recent data but in
| 2019 they imported more gas than any other country.
| srvmshr wrote:
| Fossil-fueled thermal power generation accounted for
| 71.7% of total electricity generated during the year
| [2021], down from 74.9% the previous year [2020]. Coal
| and LNG accounted for 26.5% and 31.7%, respectively, and
| both fossil fuels are on a declining trend. Nuclear power
| accounted for 5.9%, up from 4.3% the previous year.
|
| Source: https://www.isep.or.jp/en/1243/
|
| Reference #4
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I wonder why geothermal isn't big there. I'd naively
| assume that they could get a significant portion to their
| electricity from geothermal. Does anyone know what's
| preventing Japan from doing that?
| jpgvm wrote:
| Shinkansen is electric. Japan total energy mix is about 20%
| LNG or so.
| bin_bash wrote:
| Try over 40%:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Japan
| jpgvm wrote:
| Huh, it is higher now. Not quite 40% though, coal and LNG
| accounted for 26.5% and 31.7% in 2021:
| https://www.isep.or.jp/en/1243/
|
| Renewables are aggressively scaling up and nuclear looks
| like it's rebounding some.
| bin_bash wrote:
| Ah yeah you're right. A lot has changed since 2019.
| chrischen wrote:
| It might have a minor impact on trains, which could be
| powered by oil based power plants. Reality is a lot f global
| electricity is still oil powered.
| csa wrote:
| > I really doubt many people in Japan commute by car.
|
| Having lived in Japan and commuted by car in Japan, I can say
| that this is definitely not true.
|
| In the inner parts of the larger cities, yes, very true. But
| in the periphery of larger cities and in every provincial
| city (which are most of them), there is a lot of car
| commuting.
|
| For reference, I would say larger cities are Tokyo, Osaka,
| and Yokohama. Nagoya is probably around the threshold (not so
| sure, didn't spend much time there).
|
| Provincial cities like Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Sendai, and
| Sapporo are very much car-centric, although the public
| transportation system is quite robust. Most of the public
| transport in these cities is to and from the inner city and
| for short jaunts between neighborhoods by folks who don't
| drive. For jobs outside of the center city, driving a car
| would be quite common.
|
| The outskirts of Tokyo, etc. are similar to these provincial
| cities.
|
| Smaller cities like Nagasaki or Shizuoka are even more car-
| centric.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| My old roommate in Gifu commutes to her school job by car.
| Car use is very common in many of the not so big cities.
| spike021 wrote:
| Have you been to Japan? It often seems like people who have
| never been only have this ideal in their minds that everyone
| in Japan travels by bullet train or local commuter trains.
|
| There are many bus routes, and many people who still own and
| drive their own cars even in larger cities like Tokyo or
| Osaka.
| grapeskin wrote:
| Japan has one of the highest rates of car ownership in the
| world. It's pretty common outside of Tokyo/Osaka/Nagoya.
| kmclean wrote:
| Unnecessary commuting should always be included in working hours
| and expensed.
| djhaskin987 wrote:
| Are you going to expense your lunch breakfast dinner and rent
| as well? You need all those as well in order to work. If you
| work from home are you going to expense your electricity? Where
| is the line?
| yosito wrote:
| A fair line would be that you're compensated for things you
| do that you otherwise wouldn't do. You'd still eat, but many
| companies do compensate their employees for their meals
| during working hours.
| smetj wrote:
| No, just unnecessary commuting.
| SllX wrote:
| You have discovered another road to feudalism.
|
| When people cast wishes I'd like them to imagine they are
| holding a monkey's paw whilst doing so.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| The talk should be opened either way. Companies are far too
| eager to put high RE prices / high commuting costs / long
| commutes onto people, but no one is asking "where is the
| line?" when the roles are reversed.
|
| God forbid we play a few things by ear and see what happens.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| You shouldn't be able to expense things you would need if you
| weren't working as well.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > If you work from home are you going to expense your
| electricity?
|
| Funnily enough, yes.
|
| A very large group of countries have introduced 'teleworking'
| legislation post-covid, where employers are legally obliged
| to pay allowances to employees per day of remote work
| (specifically to offset electricity and internet expenses).
| aspaviento wrote:
| Actually in Spain you must get a plus by law to cover
| electricity expenses when working from home.
| cbracken wrote:
| Japanese companies often include both a commuting allowance
| and a housing allowance as distinct components of your pay;
| neither is counted as income for the purposes of taxation.
| Meals at company cafeterias are typically not free (though
| some places are), but typically very reasonable -- e.g. 300
| JPY for curry-rice etc.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Yes. My employer (US fintech) gives me a daily meal stipend
| while working remotely, as well as covers my mobile phone,
| internet, and a portion to cover my home office. This
| excludes the annual equipment, desk, and chair stipend I
| receive.
|
| This was all outlined in our remote handbook provided with my
| offer letter.
| chrischen wrote:
| It used to be that meals were tax deductible (which is why
| Google offered meals) but that got restricted. If a company
| offers a meal stipend how does that work? Is it just bonus
| compensation but ear marked for food only?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Depends on the company and how they're paying it out.
| I've seen food services where a daily credit is issued to
| your service account (funded by the org), I've seen it as
| bonus comp, etc. Whichever mechanism is used is usually
| some sort of crude optimization attempt for what's best
| for the org and the employee with whatever services and
| regulatory framework they're working with (wrt to taxes).
| LightG wrote:
| Congratulations! Honestly.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I share so others will advocate for this at scale. It's
| not some sort of impossible or unreasonable request.
| [deleted]
| dehrmann wrote:
| What about the extra space for a home office?
| 310260 wrote:
| Of course, US telecoms would never consider this despite NTT
| being one of the stodgiest on the planet.
| IceDane wrote:
| I work for a subsidiary of NTT and we've been remote first for
| years, with travel expenses handled as outlined in the article.
| It's pretty great.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You love to see it.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
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