Dyed hair and nail art ok! More Japanese firms relax rules in tussle for workers

By Satoshi Sugiyama

TOKYO (Reuters) -When 22-year-old Hinako Mori moved to Tokyo past year, she chose to enactment part-time astatine Don Quijote, a large discount retailer, for 1 main crushed - it doesn't attraction what colour her hairsbreadth is.

Sporting ash blonde locks ​with airy and acheronian bluish streaks erstwhile interviewed, Mori likes to dye her hairsbreadth antithetic colours each six weeks.

It was precise antithetic erstwhile she worked astatine a large ‌Japanese convenience store concatenation that mandated achromatic oregon acheronian brownish hair.

"One time, I dared to dye my hairsbreadth blonde. But the adjacent day, I was told to either deterioration a wig oregon usage spray-on ‌colour," said Mori. "It was precise stressful."

RETAILERS RELAX RULES

Squeezed by Japan's choky labour market, much companies are this twelvemonth pursuing successful the footsteps of Don Quijote, a Pan Pacific International radical company. It relaxed its rules astir hairsbreadth and nail polish 3 years agone and says astir a 4th of its employees present person brightly coloured hair. When brownish is included, 55% of its employees person non-black hair.

Drugstore concatenation Fuji Yakuhin, for example, has done distant with a plethora of rules for non-pharmacist employees. It ⁠now allows immoderate hairsbreadth colour, nail art, dense makeup,‌ arsenic good arsenic each kinds of rings, whereas antecedently lone wedding rings were permitted. Similarly, the relation of Tokyu Store supermarkets has dialled backmost restrictions connected hairsbreadth colours, hairsbreadth styles, accessories, nail polish and piercings.

Japan Inc has been gradually relaxing its formal codes ‍over the past 2 decades. The catalyst was a 2005 Ministry of Environment "Cool Biz" run that encouraged the ditching of jackets and ties to chopped down connected aerial conditioning costs during summer.

Since then, summertime formal codes person go much casual, uniforms are nary longer mandated for galore section store employees and achromatic gloves for taxi drivers were made optional.

The newest changes astir hairsbreadth colour, nail ​polish and accessories are predominantly taking spot astatine smaller companies facing much acute labour shortages than bigger firms and don't person arsenic overmuch leeway to connection competitory wages.

But immoderate ‌big listed firms person relaxed formal codes this year. Japan Airlines past week joined subway relation Tokyo Metro and home fund bearer Skymark Airlines successful allowing unit to deterioration sneakers to work.

LABOUR CRUNCH PRESSURE

Japan, a rapidly ageing state with constricted immigration, has seen its working-age colonisation tumble 16% since a highest successful 1995, according to OECD data. That's acceptable disconnected fierce contention for staff.