TOKYO—The president of top Japanese advertising company Dentsu Inc. said Wednesday he will resign to take responsibility for the suicide of a worker who had clocked massive overtime in her first months on the job.
President Tadashi Ishii said at a Tokyo news conference he will tender his resignation at a board meeting in January although he will stay through March as a courtesy to shareholders.
Earlier Wednesday, government authorities filed papers demanding prosecutorial charges against the unidentified Dentsu employee suspected of driving Matsuri Takahashi to suicide from overwork.
Japanese society values conformity and tends to revere workaholic lifestyles. Death linked to exhaustion is so common it’s expressed as a special term, “karoshi,” which includes suicides from overwork. About 2,000 people a year kill themselves due to work-related stress, the government says.
