In response to Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike's call on Wednesday for people to refrain from unnecessarily going out on weekends, more and more companies are introducing telecommuting. On Thursday, Hitachi Ltd. instructed roughly 50,000 of its Tokyo office employees to, in principle, work from home due to the spread of the new coronavirus.
The number of Hitachi's telecommuting employees will account for nearly 30% of the total number of employees in Japan. The duration of the telecommuting period has yet to be decided, and the company has also asked its employees to not participate in public events.
Toshiba Corp. has also decided to introduce telecommuting at its firms throughout the country, excluding production line factory workers.
IHI Corp., a major Japanese heavy industrial company, plans to introduce a telecommuting system at its group offices in Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture, excluding workplaces such as factories on Monday. About 10,000 employees, nearly half of the company's total employees in Japan, will be covered under the system, which is scheduled to run until April 3 but may be extended.
The major LCD panel maker Japan Display Inc. held a board of directors' meeting online Thursday, with roughly 250 employees in the company's Tokyo headquarters working as teleworkers.
J. Front Retailing Co., which operates major department stores, has introduced a two-day telework system at its main office in Nihonbashi, Tokyo from Thursday.
In the major trading company Itochu Corp., about 2,500 employees at its Tokyo headquarters began telecommuting on Friday. The company also asked them to refrain from going out at night.
The Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) has decided to put some 200 employees on standby at home until April 10. and to cancel a meeting of its chairman and vice chairs scheduled in April.
"Infectious diseases must be controlled. Companies and individuals should respond [to this crisis]," Keidanren Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi told reporters.
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