Terminating your employment contract can be an obstacle course in Japan. For fear of her boss’s reaction or fear that he will refuse her. Japanese companies have sensed the opportunity and have specialized in negotiations to terminate employment contracts, reports The Guardian.
As surprising as it may seem, human resources company Mynavi estimates that one in six Japanese workers have already used this type of agency in the last 12 months to June. With a peak recorded after public holidays, weekends and… rainy days. The gloom seems to lead to professional questioning.
Around a hundred agencies offer a proxy resignation service in the Land of the Rising Sun. “We submit resignations on behalf of people who, for one reason or another, cannot do it themselves,” explains Shinji Tanimoto, the director of Albatross, the company that manages the Momuri agency (“that enough”, in Japanese). In two and a half years, she concluded 20,000 resignations and made 350,000 online consultations.
Clients using this service are sometimes simply reluctant to have a difficult discussion with their employer, due to modesty; others, working in a toxic work environment or victims of harassment, do not feel capable of doing so. , notes the Japan Times.
“The job was much more physically demanding than I had been told, so I decided to quit,” a 25-year-old told the Guardian. But when I told my manager about it, he pointed out that I had signed a one-year contract and hadn’t been there long, so he refused to let me go. »
In practice, customers are invited to answer an online questionnaire, sign a contract and pay a sum ranging from 75 to 200 euros, depending on the type of contract. In return, the agency negotiates the resignation on behalf of the employee.
Most employers accept and sign the papers. But sometimes they “go crazy and threaten to come to our office,” taking their employee’s decision as a personal insult, Momuri said.
Those who use these agencies the most are from Generation Z, who are more attached to their personal lives than their elders. 60% of Momuri users are between 20 and 30 years old. But those over 40 are not left out, and more and more people are using it.
