Masayuki Morikawa, President of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan, cites a few figures.
Back at the very start of the pandemic, in mid-2020, studies showed that among small and medium-sized businesses in the US, working from home was 20% less productive than working in the office. In Japan the drop in productivity was as much as 32%.
But by the end of the pandemic, in the second half of 2021, productivity in remote work had risen slightly. In Japan, as Morikawa shows, remote work became less efficient by 28% rather than 32% (a rise of 4 percentage points).#nbsp;
Office work still proved more efficient. Another Japanese survey found that the share of firms that rated productivity at home as lower than in the office was 92.3% in 2020 and 83.5% in 2021.
It should be said that the Japanese attitude to work is highly specific. Lifetime employment and overtime are built into Japanese tradition. Staying a couple of hours late at the office was considered good manners, and leaving before your boss was unacceptable. As early as 1969, Japan recorded its first death from a stroke caused by work overexertion. The number of deaths grew, and in the 1970s the term "karoshi" appeared, meaning death from overwork and workplace stress. In 2011, the number of suicides by Japanese people due to work problems was 2,689. Over the years this figure has declined: in 2020, 1,918 suicides were recorded. According to 2015 statistics, Japanese people who died of heart or brain failure had worked more than 80 hours of overtime a month, and those who died by suicide, more than 100 hours.#nbsp;
So let's wait for further research on the efficiency of remote work.