Record Number of Japan’s Career-Track Bureaucrats Quit in Less Than 10 Years; Long Work Hours, Insufficient Pay Likely Among Reasons

The Yomiuri Shimbun

20:00 JST, August 5, 2024

A record 177 career-track national civil service employees left their jobs in fiscal 2022 in less than 10 years of being hired, the National Personnel Authority (NPA) has announced.

The current national civil service recruitment examination for career-track bureaucrats, as candidates for key posts in the future, was introduced among those who joined the national civil service in fiscal 2013.

Many of those who quit are believed to have done so because of long working hours and other reasons, moving to private companies. The NPA plans to secure human resources by promoting work-practice reforms and other measures.

The number of career-track bureaucrats who quit in less than 10 years was between 60 and 99 from fiscal 2013 to fiscal 2017, but rose to 116 in fiscal 2018, exceeding the 100 mark for the first time, according to the NPA.

Although the number of the cases declined in fiscal 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it rose to 168 in fiscal 2021. This makes fiscal 2022 the second consecutive year that the number of cases hit a record.

According to a survey conducted in fiscal 2022 by the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs, many national civil service employees who said they wanted to quit their job cited reasons such as insufficient pay, long work hours and wanting a job that allows personal development.