Mental-Disorder Workers' Comp Awards Hit a Record 1,082 (FY2025): How Japan's Occupational Injury Shifted from Overwork Death to Psychological Strain

Note: This article explains statistics and institutional structure as general information; it does not offer guidance on any specific workers' compensation claim. For actual filing and recognition, please consult a licensed labor and social security attorney (sharoshi), a lawyer, or your nearest Labour Standards Inspection Office.

On July 15, 2026, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released its FY2025 report on workers' compensation for karoshi and related conditions. Approved claims for work-related mental disorders reached 1,082 cases[1], a record high. That is up 26 from the prior year's 1,056. The recognition rate was 28.2%.

At the entry point of the system, filed claims numbered 4,958[1], up sharply from the prior year's 3,780. Of the recognized cases, suicides (including attempts) numbered 76, down from 88 a year earlier.

Breaking the approvals down by triggering event makes the structure clear.

Power harassment222

Severe misconduct by customers, etc. (customer harassment)127

Sexual harassment127

Major change in job content or workload113

Total approved claims: 1,082, a record high (the rise continues). Customer harassment (127) and sexual harassment (127) drew level. Source: MHLW, FY2025 "Workers' Compensation for Karoshi and Related Conditions" (published July 15, 2026).

The largest category was power harassment from superiors, at 222 cases[1]. The second rank is the striking one. "Suffering egregious nuisance behavior from customers, clients, or facility users" — customer harassment — reached 127 cases, and sexual harassment also reached 127[1], drawing level. Both stand above major changes in job content or workload (113). The picture in which harassment's three types occupy the top ranks has grown sharper still.

The "gateway widening" of the recognition criteria

It is too quick to read the rise as "workplaces suddenly got worse." First, we must separate out the effect of a change on the institutional side.

In September 2023, the Ministry revised its recognition criteria for mental disorders caused by psychological load. In that revision, "suffering egregious nuisance behavior from customers, clients, or facility users" was added as a specific triggering event: customer harassment[2]. At the same time, concrete examples of the six types of power harassment were spelled out in the assessment table.

In other words, strains that had not previously been articulated as grounds for recognition can now be formally captured as "psychological load caused by work." The rise in cases includes not only worsening reality but also a surfacing produced by a wider net of recognition.

Even so, the fact that filed claims themselves have risen sharply from the prior year cannot be dismissed. If the gateway had merely widened, filings could have stayed flat. That the number of people coming forward keeps climbing shows that psychological load is accumulating as a reality, too. "Surfacing" and "worsening reality" are happening at once.

The "main front" of occupational injury has moved

Once, the symbol of occupational injury was death from overwork. Long hours brought on cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease and took lives. The benchmark for judgment is the karoshi line, with 80 hours of monthly overtime serving as one standard.

What has become of that overwork-death category? Approved cardiovascular and cerebrovascular claims stood at 217[1]. That is down from 241 a year earlier, and against the 1,082 mental-disorder cases it is about one-fifth. The center of gravity of workers' compensation has moved from the physical collapse of long hours to the psychological collapse of strain.

This move is also the flip side of working-hour regulation working to a degree. Caps on overtime have advanced, and hours long enough to destroy the body have, in principle, been curbed. But the burden did not vanish; it changed form.

Harassment moved to the front of the labor problem

Harassment — power, customer, and sexual — occupies the top ranks by triggering event. It signals that the center of the burden of work has moved from the volume of tasks to relationships in the workplace and with customers.

That customer harassment has risen to draw level with sexual harassment is especially telling. It first surpassed sexual harassment in FY2024, and in FY2025 the two stood level at 127 each. The standing of "the customer" can become a breeding ground for harm against workers. This asymmetry is now counted as an independent ground for recognition.

From "quantity of time" to "quality of relationships"

Death from overwork was, at bottom, a problem of the quantity of time. How many hours one worked set the body's limit. It is easy to count and relatively easy to regulate.

Mental-disorder workers' compensation is a problem of quality. With whom, and in what kind of relationship, did one work? Attacks from a superior, unreasonable demands from a customer, an absence of discretion over one's own work. These cannot be measured as simply as a count of hours. The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT) had analyzed that approvals rose for six consecutive years[3] through FY2024; FY2025 extends the run to seven. The quality of the burden has changed, yet the design philosophy of the workplace has not caught up.

What the institutionalization of customer harassment shows

Customer harassment became an independent ground for recognition and has now reached the top level, level with sexual harassment. This means the burden of emotional labor is starting to be captured squarely by the institution.

Retail, care work, call centers. In jobs that face customers directly, responding to unreasonable demands with a smile has been the expectation. The norm that "the customer is god" conceals an asymmetry of power. That burden has been made visible and has entered the stage of recognition as occupational injury. Put the other way around, it shows just how thick the harm that had gone quietly endured really was.

Recognition is after-the-fact relief; prevention does not keep pace

Here lies a structural problem. Recognition of occupational injury is, in the end, relief after the harm has occurred. The rise in cases reflects both that the relief mechanism has begun to function and that the harm itself has not stopped.

What is truly needed is prevention before the collapse. Workplace anti-harassment measures, mechanisms to protect employees from customer harassment, designs that secure discretion over one's work. Unless these carry real force, recognized cases will keep rising. A state in which the relief figure keeps setting records is also an indicator of the failure of prevention.

Just as working-hour regulation curbed overwork death to a degree, psychological load requires its own preventive institutional design. What the numbers show is that this design has not caught up with the collapse of the working-age generation.

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Related columns

• Continuous-Duty Caps and Work-Interval Rules（このサイトの記事） (How far long-hours regulation can curb the burden)
• Why the "Right to Disconnect" Stalls in Japan（このサイトの記事） (Psychological load outside working hours)

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Further Reading

Karoshi Jisatsu (Death from Overwork by Suicide), 2nd ed.（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Hiroshi Kawahito, Iwanami Shinsho, 2014) records the reality of death from overwork and the changing shape of workers' compensation, written by a lawyer who handled many such cases. It offers a way to understand the background of mental-disorder workers' compensation through concrete cases and history. (In Japanese.)

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References

Release of the FY2025 Report on Workers' Compensation for Karoshi and Related Conditions — Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Revision of the Recognition Criteria for Mental Disorders Caused by Psychological Load — Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Approved Mental-Disorder Workers' Comp Claims Rise for a Sixth Straight Year (Business Labor Trend, Aug/Sep 2025) — Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT). Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training