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Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Work Style in Japan: the Case of Tokyo Metropolitan Area
For many years, the Tokyo Metropolitan Area (TMA) had a significant population infl ow. The negative effects of high urban concentration include long-distance commuting; high housing prices; high living costs. In 2015, the Government of Japan launched the “Regional Development Strategy” to create a social environment where people can live and have good employment opportunities. However, for the last years just a few regions have achieved
positive results. In 2020, the COVID-19 accelerated the transition to digital technologies and forced companies to resort to telework. Companies in Tokyo shifted to telework to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases so that
employees could work at any place they fi nd convenient. A possibility to choose where to live and work encourages regional migration, reduces the concentration of population in the TMA, and allows accelerating the regional
development. The implementation of telework has produced a positive impact on migration processes in the TMA. Simultaneously, it revealed that the traditional features of Japanese company work style and management had to
be changed (e.g. time availability and working hours, protocols and rituals, an exchange of business cards, greetings, communication on the phone, the specifi city of the decision-making process, etc.).
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