Senior Toyota Engineer Died From Overwork

The long hours endured by Japan's workforce have again come under scrutiny after a labour office ruled that a senior, 45-year-old employee of Toyota died suddenly as a result of overwork.

The man, whose name has been withheld at the request of his family, died in January 2006 of ischaemia - a shortage of blood to the heart - at his home in Toyota, central Japan, where the car maker has its headquarters.

A senior engineer on the hybrid version of the firm's popular Camry line, he had been working more than 80 hours overtime a month and regularly worked nights and weekends, according to his family. He was also required to make frequent business trips overseas.

He was found dead by his daughter the day before he was due to promote the hybrid Camry at an international motor show in Detroit.

The labor office's ruling means his family will be eligible for benefits from his work insurance.

In a statement, Toyota - which is on course to overtake General Motors as the world's biggest car maker - offered its condolences and said it would step up efforts to monitor the health of its workers.

The Japanese government first recognized death by overwork - known as 'karoshi' - in 1987, when the health ministry started logging cases of otherwise healthy men, some in their 20s, who dropped dead from heart attacks and strokes apparently brought on by excessive work.

According to the ministry, there were 142 recognized cases of karoshi last year, down slightly from 147 a year earlier, although campaigners say the actual figure could run into the thousands.

Men in their 50s made up 42% of the total, while men in their 40s accounted for 29%.

"Working hours in Japan are far too long, which contributes to stress levels among employees that are among the highest in the world," Akiko Taguchi, the deputy director of the International labor Organization's office in Tokyo, told the Guardian.

The ruling comes several months after a Japanese court ordered the government to pay compensation to the wife of another Toyota employee who died of heart failure in 2002 at the age of 30 after collapsing at work.

Kenichi Uchino, a quality controller, had also been working about 80 hours overtime a month, most of it unpaid. In his final month at the car plant, he had logged 106 extra hours at work.

The labour ministry rejected claims by his wife, Hiroko, that her husband, a father of two young children, had died from karoshi, but was overruled by the Nagoya district court last December."There are lots of people out there suffering from this established practice of 'voluntary overtime'," Ms Uchino said after the ruling, adding that employees like her husband had contributed to Toyota's profits.

"As Toyota continues to grow, I hope it will return some [of the profits] to its workers. That would make it a true global leader," she said.