Pay and working conditions in Japan

7 national benchmarks, from official statistics

Figures a single company page cannot give you: what is normal in Japan. Each of these comes from a government survey, with the caveats that make the number readable. Use them as the baseline when you look at an individual employer.

Benchmark	National figure	Basis	Source
Retirement payouts	¥24.2m	35 years of service	National Personnel Authority
Bonuses	¥0.91m	2.86 months of pay	Basic Survey on Wage Structure
Graduate starting salaries	¥237.3k/mo	university graduates	Basic Survey on Wage Structure
Overtime hours in Japan	11.0h	14,283 companies	Company disclosure (Shokuba-Lab)
Paid leave uptake in Japan	73.3%	5,306 companies	Company disclosure (Shokuba-Lab)
Men's parental leave in Japan	56.3%	16,170 companies	Company disclosure (Shokuba-Lab)
Women in management in Japan	10.2%	19,089 companies	Company disclosure (Shokuba-Lab)

Medians for company-disclosed data, averages for the government surveys — each page says which, and why.

Why these and not others

Every figure here is from a statutory or official source. No survey panels, no self-reported salary sites. Where a number cannot be built honestly from public data — the retirement payout of a named company, for instance — we say so on the page instead of estimating it.
Company-disclosed data has a survivorship problem. Overtime, paid leave, parental leave and management ratios come from what employers choose to publish, so read them as the optimistic end.
Government survey data has a recency problem. The retirement survey is from 2016 — the most recent edition of that particular survey, not a current-year figure.

How the systems work

These pages are the measured levels. If you need the rules behind them — what is required by law, what is only convention, and when each rule took effect — Bonuses ・ Retirement lump sums ・ Graduate hiring ・ Paid leave ・ Overtime ・ Parental leave ・ Women in management ・ Reading salary figures ・ Contracts and dismissal ・ Annual securities reports ・ all guides.

Individual companies

For a specific employer, the annual securities report carries average pay, headcount, tenure and workforce ratios — see the company index or the rankings. Raw data is on data downloads.

Sources: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Basic Survey on Wage Structure; Shokuba-Lab; Database of Companies Promoting Women's Participation) and the National Personnel Authority. Compiled by Corpus; not provided or endorsed by any government agency.