Mental-Disorder Workers' Comp Claims Hit a Record 1,055: How Japan's Occupational Injury Shifted from Overwork Death to Psychological Strain
In June 2025, approved workers' compensation claims for work-related mental disorders reached a record 1,055 — the sixth consecutive annual increase and the first time above 1,000. The leading cause was power harassment, and customer harassment surpassed sexual harassment for the first time. Meanwhile, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular claims from long working hours stood at just 241. The center of gravity of occupational injury has moved from "quantity of time" to "quality of relationships."
TL;DR
- FY2024 approved mental-disorder workers' comp claims reached 1,055, a record high — up 172 from the prior year's 883, a sixth straight annual increase and the first time above 1,000
- The leading triggering event was power harassment (224). Customer harassment (108) surpassed sexual harassment (105) for the first time
- Long-hours cardiovascular/cerebrovascular claims totaled 241, under a quarter of the mental-disorder figure. The main front of occupational injury has moved 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.
What Is Happening
Approved mental-disorder claims hit a record 1,055; power harassment led, and customer harassment surpassed sexual harassment
On June 25, 2025, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released its FY2024 report on workers' compensation for karoshi and related conditions. Approved claims for work-related mental disorders reached 1,055 cases, a record high. That is up 172 from the prior year's 883, a sixth consecutive annual increase. It is the first time the figure has passed 1,000.
At the entry point of the system, filed claims numbered 3,780, up 205 year on year — a fourth straight increase. Of the recognized cases, suicides (including attempts) numbered 88.
Breaking the approvals down by triggering event makes the structure clear.
Total approved claims: 1,055, a record high (sixth consecutive annual increase). Customer harassment (108) surpassed sexual harassment (105) for the first time. Source: MHLW, FY2024 "Workers' Compensation for Karoshi and Related Conditions" (published June 25, 2025).
The largest category was power harassment from superiors, at 224 cases, followed by major changes in job content or workload at 119. The third rank is the striking one. Egregious nuisance behavior from customers and clients — customer harassment — reached 108 cases, surpassing sexual harassment (105) for the first time.
By age, the cases concentrate among working-age adults: 283 in their 40s, 245 in their 30s, 243 in their 20s. People from early career to just short of veteran are being felled by psychological strain.
Background & Context
The 2023 criteria revision widened recognition, as occupational injury's center moved from long-hours cases to psychological strain
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. 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 for four straight years 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 241. They have risen for three straight years, but against the 1,055 mental-disorder cases they are under a quarter. 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 surpassed sexual harassment is especially telling. 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.
Reading the Structure
As work's burden shifts from quantity of time to quality of relationships, prevention lags behind after-the-fact 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) likewise analyzes that approvals have risen for six consecutive years. 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 surpassed 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.
Related columns
- Continuous-Duty Caps and Work-Interval Rules (How far long-hours regulation can curb the burden)
- Why the "Right to Disconnect" Stalls in Japan (Psychological load outside working hours)
Further Reading
Karoshi Jisatsu (Death from Overwork by Suicide), 2nd ed. (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.)
References
Release of the FY2024 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
