考研英语阅读篇章日本强制加班族休假_大学英语阅读

考研英语阅读篇章日本强制加班族休假

　　When you have a longer working day, at some point because youre becoming tired, it decreases your productivity, French economist Renaud Bourls told BusinessWeek.

　　Nonetheless, mandatory vacation days may not be a perfect solution. The Diplomat notes that mandatory holidays can create headaches for a workforce all taking the day off together. In theory, when employees voluntarily choose their vacation days the dip in the workforce is more evenly distributed over the year. But when everyone is taking the same national holidays cities are left with congested roads and overbooked flights during what is meant as a window of relaxation.

　　In the US 77 percent of all private companies offer paid vacation and holidays although federal law does not require them to do so. Thats still better than Japan, where most workers are not paid for their mandatory holiday days off.

　　The concept of being overworked is so prevalent in Japan that the country has its own word for people who die of heart attacks and other ailments directly attributed to excessive labor Karoshi. The word literally translates to mean death from over work.

　　In recent years, Karoshi has broadened its meaning to include Japanese salarymen who commit suicide as a result of the emotional distress from working too much and under uncertain conditions. A 2012 Pulitzer Center investigation outlined a scenario that might sound unsettlingly familiar to many American workers: