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In Episode 10, which itself is called "Full-time Employment is a Loophole in the Law to Make Wages Lower…" or 「正社員ってお給料を安くするための法の抜け穴...」 「Seishain tte Okyūryō o Yasukusuru Tame no Hō no Nukeana 」 (essentially taken from the dialogue)…

When referring to why Nene can't work as a playtester on weekends, they discuss:

Aoba: Why can't part-timers work on the weekends?
Kou: Oh, it depends on the company, but they're paid by the hour, so if they worked overtime and weekends, they'd get paid more than you, Aoba.
Aoba: W-Wait a minute! Is being a full-time employee just a loophole to make wages lower?
Kou: We can talk about that some other time.

Is being a full-time employee a loophole to make wages lower?

What is this referring to? Is this something that also applies to the western world or some kind of business law in Japan?

1 Answer 1

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If one is salaried, one doesn't usually get paid overtime. Aoba, presumably, is salaried, so like many full-time workers, she won't get overtime.

However as a part-time/temp worker, Nene would likely get overtime which is why she could end up earning more than Aoba.

As a general example, videogame programmers work longer hours for less pay compared to programmers in more "soulless" industries.

They usually have relatively more passion for their work than those from most other industries. Unfortunately, there are companies who are happy to exploit that to drive wages down.

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    Is this Japan-specific? In Europe, specifically Germany, a full time job will include a number of working hours in the contract (or some other, equivalent measure; if there is nothing, I’m pretty sure a standard is assumed) and anything above that is overtime and must either be payed out or reduced by granting the employee more free time. Tbh, I pretty much don’t know how the rest of the world sees this legally, though.
    – Jan
    Oct 30, 2016 at 23:41
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    This is just a general explanation, if you are looking for specific details, try Workplace.SE.
    – кяαzєя
    Oct 30, 2016 at 23:44
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    @Jan Generally, EU states are more progressive in their approaches to workers' rights than either the US or Japan. In both the US and Japan, "salaried" frequently means "infinity hours per week".
    – senshin
    Oct 31, 2016 at 6:57
  • @Jan That's not true in all of Europe - although it is usually true for lower paid jobs or jobs protected by collective bargaining agreements. But for managerial jobs or better paid professional jobs such as lawyers or consultants, overtime is usually taken to be included in normal pay. Where a playtester sits in Europe in this regard, I don't really know. Oct 31, 2016 at 8:14

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