one of the key provisions of the country’s employment law, specifically on the “doctrine of abusive dismissal,” is that “employers can’t just shed employees.” They can only do so, says Matanle, “when the employer can prove that the organization would go bust.”

Should a Japanese company be found to break the law by, say, reducing its workforce to cynically juice the numbers of a quarterly report, dismissed employees are liable to be reinstated. “You can imagine the relationship problems,” says Matanle, “of staff who have won a court case against the organization for aggressive dismissal.”

Sure would like some of those employment rights here in America right about now.