Advertising giant Dentsu has revealed that it received a warning from the Tokyo Labor Bureau in August last year for illegally forcing its employees to work long hours. Four months after this warning, however, a new female employee killed herself due to fatigue due from overwork. The bureau has been investigating the case to see if Dentsu continued to make its employees work long hours even after its warning, Sankei Shimbun reported.

According to Dentsu, the graduate employee, Matsuri Takahashi, aged 24, committed suicide in a company dorm on Dec 25, 2015, after having been forced to work more than 100 hours overtime a month. She had joined the company in April that year.

The case has been in the media all week and was also brought up during Diet discussions, with some lawmakers calling for Dentsu's labor practices to be thoroughly investigated.

After the warning, Dentsu introduced a “no zangyo (overtime) day” while encouraging its employees to take paid leave. In a statement on Takahashi's suicide, Dentsu said: “We regret the lack of attention to the fact that she was a new employee and that there was a rapid increase in her the workload.”

© Japan Today