People all over the world celebrate Christmas on December 25th. But for Takahashi Yukimi, it’s a day to remember her daughter, Matsuri, whose case serves as a somber symbol of the dangers of karoshi (過労死), or death by overwork. In her annual public letter, Yukimi says she continues to pray for “a country where everyone can work safely.”
(Content warning: This article discusses suicide.)
Takahashi Matsuri joined marketing company Dentsu in 2015. Within months, badge records later showed, Takahashi was working 130 hours of overtime a month – 60 hours above the company’s 60-hour cap. Stressed and sleep-deprived, Takahashi Matsuri took her own life on Christmas day, 2015.
It later came out that Dentsu had been telling employees to falsify their timesheets to keep their reported hours under the maximum overtime hours per month. Before Takahashi, another employee, Oshima Ichiro, had also lost his life after working 76-hour workweeks.
Since her daughter’s death, Takahashi Yukimi has been an advocate for work reform in Japan. Every year, she releases a message commemorating her daughter and pleading for better working conditions for everyone in Japan.
In this year’s message, Yukimi wrote, “A child always runs through my heart in December. It’s hard to put the reason into words but it means that the day I couldn’t save Matsuri is close by.”
Talking about improvements made at Dentsuu since the incident, Yukimi said, “What’s important now is for the company to consider what it should do for employees who are losing sleep, working overtime, and reporting to work on their days off for the sake of their projects.”
Recognizing that there have been legal reforms to Japan’s working conditions, Yukimi pointed out that “there are still people getting sick or dying because of work.” Indeed, in 2023, Japan officially recognized 883 cases of work-related injuries – an all-time record.
“It’s been nine years without Matsuri, but also nine years that Matsuri and I have walked together. Matsuri and I will keep exerting all our efforts to fulfill our prayer of a nation where everyone can work safely and live in hope.”
Severe cases of karoshi continue to plague Japan. In 2023, a local labor inspection standards office ruled that the death of medical resident Takashima Shingo, who worked 207 hours of overtime, was a case of karoshi.
Japan now officially designates any time greater than 100 hours a month as the “karoshi line,” beyond which a case can be designated as a work-related injury or death. In 2021, a patisserie chain came under fire when it came out that it routinely worked its employees over 100 hours of overtime monthly.
If you are in Japan and need help, you can call the following numbers:
0570-064-556 for kokoro-no-kenkou-soudan (こころの健康相談) operated by prefectorial and city organizations.
0570-783-556 for inochi-no-denwa (いのちの電話) operated by Federation of Inochi No Denwa.
0120-061-338 for #inochi-SOS (＃いのちSOS) operated by jisatsu-taisaku-shien-sentā (自殺対策支援センター), or suicide prevention support center.
0120-0-78310 for Children’s SOS Support Desk operated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology.
If you are in the US, call 911 for emergencies and 988 for the suicide hotline.
If you want to know your country’s suicide hotline, click the link here.
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