TOKYO: The number of Japanese who committed or attempted suicide due to overwork and stress has doubled in the past five years, a government report published on Saturday said.

The health ministry report said 81 people killed themselves or attempted suicide in 2007 — compared with 40 in 2003 — due to work-related problems.

Last year also saw a record 268 people with officially recognised work stress-induced mental illness, said the report, which was released on Friday and published on Saturday in major newspapers.

It said employees in their 30s and 40s were most prone to stress because more companies had introduced a pay-per-performance system in recent years.

Many of the officially recognised work-related suicides were among people working overtime of between 80 and 100 hours per month. About 10 per cent of them did more than 160 hours of overtime, or an average of five hours extra daily, including weekends.

Under health ministry guidelines, relatives of an employee who dies after filing a monthly overtime report of 80 hours or longer are entitled to receive compensation from an employer.

The 81 suicide cases in 2007 classified as work stress-related by the health ministry were only a fraction of Japan’s total number of suicides. —AP