爲員工過勞自殺道歉 日本電通總裁引咎辭職

The head of Japanese advertising group Dentsu is to step down following the suicide of an employee who had worked hundreds of hours of overtime.

在一位員工加班數百小時自殺之後，日本廣告集團電通的總裁即將下臺。

Tadashi Ishii said he would tender his resignation at a January board meeting.

石井直稱，他將在一月的董事會上遞交辭呈。

Matsuri Takahashi, 24, jumped to her death in December last year and in a note left for her mother, she asked: "Why do things have to be so hard?".

去年十二月，24歲的高橋茉莉跳樓自殺，在留給媽媽的便條上，她不禁發問：“爲什麼如此艱辛？”

She had started working at Dentsu in April 2015 and was soon doing an additional 100 hours a month.

2015年4月，她開始在電通工作，不久後，每月的加班時間就達100小時。

Dentsu has been under pressure to reduce the amount of overtime its employees do and in November it was raided by labour regulators.

電通集團一直面臨着減少員工加班量的壓力，去年十一月，勞動省監管員對電通展開了突然調查。

In September, the Japanese government ruled that Ms Takahashi's death had been caused by overwork. She would often return home at 5am after spending all day and night at the office.

去年九月，日本政府裁定高橋女士是過勞死。在辦公室待了一天一夜後，她通常於早上五點回到家中。

Mr Ishii, who has been chief executive in 2011, said: "This is something that should never have been allowed to happen."

於2011年擔任首席執行官的石井直先生表示：“這是不應該允許發生的事情。”

While Dentsu is attempting to curtail overwork - by turning off lights at the headquarters at 10pm - it admitted that more than 100 workers were still doing an extra 80 hours a month.

儘管電通集團正通過晚上十點關閉總部電燈的方式來縮減加班，但是該集團也承認，仍有百餘名員工每月的加班時間超過了80小時。

Death linked to exhaustion in Japan is so common that there is a word, "karoshi", to describe it. According to government figures, about 2,000 people a year kill themselves because of overwork.

在日本，疲勞致死非常普遍，以至於專有一個詞"karoshi"用來描述它。據政府的數據顯示，每年約有2000人因加班而死。