In the Yahoo! News comments section on 18 August, readers highlighted the structural reasons why AI and operational efficiency improvements are not reducing overtime, bringing challenges in workload design and employment practices into focus.
Several readers have pointed out in the Yahoo! News comments section that overtime is not declining despite the introduction of generative AI and operational efficiency improvements. The reallocation of capacity created through efficiency gains to new tasks and additional work has been cited as a reason time savings have not materialised.
Some commenters say that membership-based employment practices rooted in Japanese companies, along with a situation in which efficiency improvements are pursued while workload boundaries remain unclear, are influencing how this capacity is used.
There is also a view that management has not adequately managed workloads and is using the benefits of efficiency gains to expand operations rather than reduce workers’ burdens, raising questions about how the benefits of efficiency gains should be allocated and where responsibility lies.
The discussion has centred on the view that workload design and the allocation of responsibility need to be reviewed, including who uses the “spare capacity” created through efficiency gains and how it is used.