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May 26th, 2010 |

In Japan the parents of a 24 year old restaurant worker have been awarded 78.63 million yen (£607,000) because the man died due to ‘overwork’ (Karoshi).

It is claimed that ‘Motoyasu Fukiage worked more than 112 hours of overtime a month for the four month period of his employment at the restaurant, in addition to his regular 40 hours a week – making a total of around 272 hours a month.’ He died in bed of heart failure.

Sounds like a lot of hours, doesn’t it? So break it down… 40 hours a week = 5.7 hours a day (based on a 7 day week); 112 hours of overtime over a month = 3.7 hours a day; QED… 272 hours over 30 days = 9 hours a day.

Nine hours a day! Is that all? Sheesh!

I, at first, had some sympathy having ended up in hospital, some years back, with exhaustion after working twelve hours a day, seven days a week, for eighteen months. I did feel somewhat tired after touring a heavy theatre show for twenty-one weeks, non stop, and slept for a couple of days afterwards.

The average Brit works 40.5 hours a week (then add overtime) but some, like theatre workers, do 50+ and some construction workers and taxi drivers work 60.

Nine hours a day? Wuss! … and, I would suspect, another case of ambulance chasing lawyers.

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