Over the past year, Mr Toshiyuki Niino and Mr Yuichiro Okazaki have abruptly quit almost 1,500 jobs in retail, restaurants, IT, manufacturing and healthcare. Not one of these positions, however, was their own.
Behold, say the founders of Exit, the rise of Japan's proxy resignation industry - a 50,000-yen-per-transaction service (S$606) tailored to a labour force too embarrassed, dutiful or browbeaten to hand in its notice in person.
The service has sprung to life amid slow but fundamental shifts in Japanese attitudes towards work.
An ageing population is tightening the employment market, employees are more attracted to job-hopping and employers are becoming desperate to hold on to staff.
"There is an atmosphere that hangs over so many Japanese companies that it is wrong or shameful to quit - that you would be letting people down or would be screamed at by a boss," said Mr Okazaki.
"So many people just press on in terrible jobs they hate. Well, they did until our company came along."
The service provided by Tokyo-based Exit and a handful of recently established rivals is simple. The clients - mostly in their 20s or 30s and about 70 per cent of them men - contact Exit online and discuss their desire to quit.
Many of them, said Mr Okazaki, relay miserable accounts of bullying, boredom or the tacit expectation that they work hundreds of annual hours of unpaid overtime. But none have the courage to actually go ahead and cut the cord.
Clients tell Exit when they want to resign, with most of them saying they want to do so the next day.
RELATED STORY
Behold, say the founders of Exit, the rise of Japan's proxy resignation industry - a 50,000-yen-per-transaction service (S$606) tailored to a labour force too embarrassed, dutiful or browbeaten to hand in its notice in person.
The service has sprung to life amid slow but fundamental shifts in Japanese attitudes towards work.
An ageing population is tightening the employment market, employees are more attracted to job-hopping and employers are becoming desperate to hold on to staff.
"There is an atmosphere that hangs over so many Japanese companies that it is wrong or shameful to quit - that you would be letting people down or would be screamed at by a boss," said Mr Okazaki.
"So many people just press on in terrible jobs they hate. Well, they did until our company came along."
The service provided by Tokyo-based Exit and a handful of recently established rivals is simple. The clients - mostly in their 20s or 30s and about 70 per cent of them men - contact Exit online and discuss their desire to quit.
Many of them, said Mr Okazaki, relay miserable accounts of bullying, boredom or the tacit expectation that they work hundreds of annual hours of unpaid overtime. But none have the courage to actually go ahead and cut the cord.
Clients tell Exit when they want to resign, with most of them saying they want to do so the next day.
RELATED STORY
