Photo/Illutration Young bureaucrats discuss the future of public servants’ work on Feb. 8 in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward. (Ken Sakakibara)

Alarms are ringing in the central government over the growing exodus of young bureaucrats who have had enough of the harsh working conditions.

The number of young officials giving up their careers at central government ministries and agencies has quadrupled over six years, according to a survey.

In early February, a team of young government workers spread a large sheet of paper in a meeting room within the Cabinet Secretariat. It showed what were essentially parting words from bureaucrats who found it impossible to continue working in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo’s bureaucratic nerve center.

One message said that mainstream officials have to work 24 hours a day for promotions. Another criticized the tradition of refusing to let first- and second-year bureaucrats record their overtime hours, and others said workers became ill after putting in 100 hours of overtime a month.

Many government workers said they quit their jobs for a healthy work-life balance.

“They were determined to improve society but had no choice but to leave,” said Kenjiro Taniguchi, 33, an official of the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs. “This constitutes a loss for the state.”

About 4,000 national civil servants, excluding those who reach standard retirement age, quit annually.

The dropout number for bureaucrats in their 20s was 104 in fiscal 2019, compared with 25 in fiscal 2013. The figures were 35 in fiscal 2014, 41 in 2015, 47 in 2016, 43 in 2017, and 81 in 2018, according to the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs.

Underscoring the lack of appeal of working at central government offices, the number of applicants taking exams for career-track bureaucrats has declined for five consecutive years.

Last autumn, Taniguchi and the seven other officials in their 30s at the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs and the National Personnel Authority started interviewing 40 former bureaucrats about why they had quit.

The findings showed a disdain for the organizational climate that only praises individuals who can constantly work overtime.

According to the responses, bureaucrats were so focused on their tasks in Kasumigaseki that their partners were forced to do all tasks related to their children, homes and elderly family members.

The team found the “same despair” expressed about a working model from the Showa Era (1926-1989) that is still widely accepted among central government officials.

Yuka Okumura, 33, a team member from the National Personnel Authority, said she currently faces difficulties working overtime hours or taking business trips because she needs to care of her child.

“A respondent explained the agony felt while spending time with the family,” Okumura said. “This resembles my own feelings because I also feel guilty.”

However, radical reform of the work environment is seen as difficult because of bureaucrats’ heavy responsibility for supporting Diet discussions between the ruling and opposition parties. They must, for example, wait for and screen lawmakers’ inquiries and then develop answers and statements for ministers and others to give in the Diet.

The team argued that allowing bureaucrats to select a work style that suits their household situations, specialties and personal interests would lead to more diversified assessments of their work. It would also widen the range of individuals who can contribute to the government and improve its policies.

Ryosuke Yamauchi, 31, an official of the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs, said it is important to make different work styles available so that people have choices in each stage of life.

“Can’t we shift from the current system of ‘everyone climbing Mount Fuji’ to one where personnel can ‘ascend their preferred peaks’ in their envisioned career paths?” he said.

The team plans to submit a proposal on changing public servants’ work styles to the government by the end of the year.

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