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Working from forests? Japan has recently shifted from traditional working culture with the pandemic forcing companies to encourage more staff to partake in ‘remote teleworking’. This shift is massive for the country – but the government is taking it one step further and encouraging people to work from Japan’s national parks.
At the start of the crisis, the government began urging companies to encourage up to 70% of their workforce to work from home, as reported in the Asahi Shimbun. As figures fell short, the government has since offered grants to municipalities that promote teleworking in order to feed rural revitalisation, as mentioned in the Japan Times.
More recently, as the government has been looking to revitalise rural economies, the Ministry of Environment has been subsidising Wi-Fi installation across Japan’s 34 national parks, according to Tokyo Timeout. The move is aimed at coaxing people away from cities, and aims to increase teleworking and bring people and money back into dwindling rural economies. Some of Japan’s biggest national parks (including Sentonaikai, Nikko and Aso-kuju) have already set up Wi-Fi ‘workations’ with hotels, lodges and campsites already operating as teleworking sites.
A reversal of the migration from the countryside to major cities across Japan – such as Tokyo and Osaka – would be a huge win for the government. For now though, the initiative provides an impressive backdrop for ‘teleworkers’.
News taken from various sources including, Asashi Shimbun, Japan Times and Tokyo Timeout.
You might like to read Insider, Van’s blog post, ‘The wild heart of Japan’.