While Western CEOs debate productivity, 5-day mandates, and AI headcount cuts, Japanese companies are paying older workers to do nothing

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As corporate America and Europe drag workers back to five days in the office and squeeze for ever more efficiency, Japan is quietly paying thousands of older employees to show up, sit down, and do almost nothing at all.

Meet the madogiwazoku cohort—older, underperforming, or redundant employees who are assigned desks near the window with little to no work to do.