Chief to resign over suicide from overwork

Associated Press

TOKYO

The president of top Japanese advertising company Dentsu Inc. said last week 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 this month although he will stay through March as a courtesy to shareholders.

Government authorities filed papers demanding prosecutorial charges against the unidentified Dentsu employee suspected of driving Matsuri Takahashi to suicide from overwork.

Takahashi, 24, had just started working at Dentsu in April 2015. Her workload surged in October and she often returned home at five in the morning after working all day and night. Takahashi was clocking 100 hours of overtime a month before she jumped from her company dorm balcony in December 2015.

The government in September ruled that overwork caused her death.