Meanwhile, death-by-overwork (karoshi) lawsuits have been on the rise in Japan, with the deceased person's relatives demanding compensation payments. However, before compensation can be awarded, the labor inspection office must acknowledge that the death was work-related. As this may take many years in detailed and time-consuming judicial hearings, many do not demand payment.

Although initially it was admitted that only 80 victims existed between 1987 and 1989, an investigating commission concluded that, only in 1990, died from Karoshi syndrome more than 10,000 people. Despite the government’s efforts to keep control over the phenomena, the number of deaths caused by overwork is increasing. This is a trend that goes outside the boarders of Japan, the only difference being that the Japanese government recognizes death by overworking as a work related accident. Multinational companies around the world have officialy announced that measures will be taken to monitor the health condition of the population.

One concept that covers most of the uniquely Japanese practices that have achieved such worldwide fame for the Japanese management systems is the umbrella concept of ‘Kaizen’. These concepts have developed strategies that assure continuous improvement involving people at all levels of the organizational hierarchy. It refers to "continuous improvement" and depends on the workers' contributions.

An example of applying the kaizen technique is the method focused on revealing any ‘waste time’ by having workers with any spare time to stand conspicuously and simply do nothing. This meant that if a worker could finish his task in 40 seconds rather than the prorated 60 seconds, he would be made to stand the remaining 20 seconds. In other words, he would have to wait the 20 seconds before starting his task over again.

Another example involved a modification of the work factor system (WFS) imported from the United States. Management determined the standard time for each basic movement, measured the number of basic motions of a very skilled worker and identified the minimum number of each task. They did not factor in any safety coefficient on the final number. Under this new production method, the worker resembles a mouse running helplessly in a rotating wheel in order to avoid electric shock, rather than a working human.

Japanese companies inculcate in workers their role as associates of the firm, sharing the same goals as management rather than having their own distinct interests as members of a different,working class. Companies have organized many formal, informal and/or secret activities to spread the ideology that management and workers share the same fate.

Much of the change from recent years has been a result of Government directive, after other nations contended that Japan was competing unfairly by virtually enslaving its population to fuel its export machine.

To counter such criticism, the Government started a program to make Japan a "life style superpower" as well as an economic one, by coaxing and sometimes practically forcing people to take it easy.Companies, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes out of self-interest, went along, at times even paying their workers extra to take vacations and turning off the lights to get people to go home.

Experts and everyday workers alike say there has been a gradual shift away from the mentality of sacrificing one's personal life for the company. One factor is that employees are seeing that the lifetime employment system, which provided security in exchange for loyalty, has been weakened by the prolonged slump.
Many companies have introduced flexible working hours and merit pay systems, so that employees are now evaluated on their accomplishments, not merely on the basis of seniority or hours worked. Still, the change is gradual. Some Japanese workers say that despite what their employers say, pressures remain to work late and to skip vacations.

Furthermore, in Japanese companies, in which employees often work in teams, it has been considered an imposition on colleagues to take a long vacation. It can also be seen as a lack of dedication.

Suffering from an acute need to rest, people instead take off on national holidays, when it is socially acceptable to stay away from work. A result is huge traffic jams and crowded resorts on those occasions.

The Government has also been increasing the number of holidays in addition to working towards five-day workweek. But further moves to cut working hours are starting to find opposition. As the five-day workweek proliferates, some people feel that they don't need any more holidays.

An interesting example of the pace of the change and the people’s own resistance to it is the response to measures taken by some companies, such as Toyota, that makes public address announcements every hour after 7 p.m. at some offices pointing out the importance of rest and urging workers to go home, or Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking, a division of Japan's largest banking group, that started in 2007 to allow employees to go home up to three hours early to care for children or elderly relatives. So far, just 34 of the company's 7,000 employees have signed up for the plan.

Dozens of large corporations have also implemented "no overtime days", which require employees to leave the office promptly at 5:30 p.m. However, few workers actually take advantage of this, opting to stay in the office with the lights off or simply taking their work home (called furoshiki or "cloaked overtime").

Recently, the national government took advantage of international trade pressure to change the law, making it more convenient for corporations to manage long working hours more cost-effectively. Unpaid and so-called voluntary overtime work has become very common. Japanese Labor Standards do not limit overtime work as long as there is a collective agreement between labor and management. The hours and proportion of overtime are greater in large compared to small firms. Most overtime has been regularly included in the work day under the collective agreement with cooperative enterprise unions.