--- title: "Hiring Side-Job Talent in Japan: Contract, Hours, Reviews" description: Hire a side-job worker in Japan as an employee and the first hour can be overtime. How to pick the contract, combine hours, guard secrets and review output. image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-10/hiring-side-job-talent-cover-en-2026-10.png --- [Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en) [Profile](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en) [Method](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/method?hsLang=en) [Articles](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog?hsLang=en) [Glossary](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/glossary?hsLang=en) [Contact](https://nobusato.jp/en/contact?hsLang=en) [日本語](https://nobusato.jp/ja/blog/hiring-side-job-talent)[English](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/hiring-side-job-talent)[中文](https://nobusato.jp/zh/blog/hiring-side-job-talent) Organizations & Hiring In this article 1. [Employee or contractor?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/hiring-side-job-talent#s1) 2. [Why the first hour can be overtime](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/hiring-side-job-talent#s2) 3. [Confidentiality and non-compete](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/hiring-side-job-talent#s3) 4. [How do you review someone who is there one day a week?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/hiring-side-job-talent#s4) 1. [Home](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en) 2. [Articles](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog?hsLang=en) 3. [Organizations & Hiring](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/tag/organizations-hiring) # Hiring Side-Job Talent in Japan: Contract, Hours, Reviews Taking on side-job talent in Japan [Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)7 min read Contents4 1. [Employee or contractor?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/hiring-side-job-talent#s1) 2. [Why the first hour can be overtime](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/hiring-side-job-talent#s2) 3. [Confidentiality and non-compete](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/hiring-side-job-talent#s3) 4. [How do you review someone who is there one day a week?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/hiring-side-job-talent#s4) If you hire someone in Japan as an employee for one day a week while they keep a full-time job elsewhere, every hour they work for you may count as overtime. That surprises most foreign managers, and it is only the first of the design questions. Side jobs are common enough to plan for: Japan's 2022 Employment Status Survey counted 3.05 million people working outside farming and forestry who had a second job, and 4.93 million who wanted to add one. ## Employee or contractor? Decide this first, because everything else follows from it. If you will direct how and when the person works, you are an employer. If you are buying a result, a service contract (gyomu itaku) is an option. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) publishes guidelines on side jobs, written in 2018 and revised in September 2020 and July 2022. They say working hours are combined across employers only for people who count as workers under the Labor Standards Act. Freelancers, founders, co-owners, advisers, consultants, and company directors and auditors are outside that rule. The label on the contract does not settle it. The ministry says worker status is judged on the actual conditions, whatever the contract is called. If you set the hours and the place, hand out tasks, and the person can't say no, a contract titled "outsourcing" can still be employment. I went through those tests in [Contractors instead of employees in Japan: does it hold?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/contractors-instead-of-employees-in-japan?hsLang=en) Contracting has its own rules too. Since November 1, 2024, Japan's freelance transactions act requires a company that engages an individual with no employees to state the terms clearly and, as a rule, to pay within 60 days of receiving the work. ## Why the first hour can be overtime Because Japan adds up a person's hours across employers, and the employer who signed second absorbs the excess. Article 38(1) of the Labor Standards Act says hours worked at different workplaces are combined for the purpose of the hours rules. The guidelines describe the default method in two steps. First, add each side's scheduled hours in the order the contracts were signed. Then add any unscheduled hours in the order they actually happen. Each employer pays the overtime premium on the hours it had the person work. Take the usual case. The main job schedules 40 hours a week and was signed first. You sign second, for one 8-hour day a week. That is 48 hours, and the 8 hours above the statutory 40 land on you. From the first hour, you owe a premium of at least 25%, and you need an overtime agreement with your workforce (a "36 agreement") that covers it. This is a simplified case: it assumes the person is not a manager exempt from the hours rules in the main job, and that neither employer uses a variable or flextime hours system. Change those and the math changes. For the employer who signs second, a side-job worker's first hour is already past Japan's 40-hour week Assumption: main job 40 scheduled hours a week, signed first; side job one 8-hour day a week, signed second. Combined using the default method in MHLW's side-job guidelines (revised July 2022). Exceptions such as exempt managers or variable hours systems are ignored. Bars and scale run to 48 hours **Scheduled hours per week**　combined in contract order - Main jobsigned first, 40 scheduled 40 h - Your companysigned second, 8 scheduled 8 h **48** h/week 40 statutory limit48 The 8 hours over the limit belong to whoever signed second. Hire a side-jobber as an employee and the premium starts at hour one. Figure 1. A 40-hour main job signed first plus an 8-hour side job signed second adds up to 48 hours a week; under the default method in MHLW's guidelines, the 8 hours above the statutory 40 fall on the second employer, which owes a premium of at least 25% and needs a 36 agreement. There is a simpler route, which the ministry calls the management model. Each employer sets a cap in advance so that the combined total stays under 100 hours in any month and at or under an 80-hour monthly average across several months. As long as each stays within its cap, neither has to track the other's actual hours. Normally the main employer, who signed first, proposes it, and the second employer agrees through the worker. Whether the main employer goes along is not your call. That is the weak spot. For a sense of how much overtime the main job already carries, [Overtime in Japan: 13 hours a month, or 21?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-overtime-two-numbers?hsLang=en) sets out the two official numbers. And each employer owes its own duty of care under Article 5 of the Labor Contracts Act. "We only had him one day a week" is not a defense if you stacked a deadline on someone already worn out. ## Confidentiality and non-compete Write down what counts as confidential, and check the person's obligations to the main employer yourself. The guidelines tell the receiving company to confirm that the worker is not breaching a non-compete duty owed to another employer. They also list when a company may restrict an employee's side job: when it gets in the way of their work, when it leaks business secrets, when competition harms the company, or when it damages the company's reputation or trust. Read from your side, that is a list of what could come back at you. What I would put in place, at minimum: - A clause in both directions. What of yours is confidential, and a flat ban on bringing in the main employer's documents, customer data or code. The second one matters more. If something they brought in becomes a dispute, your company's name is on it too. - Same industry is not automatically a no. The guidelines say even the same line of work can be acceptable. But keep their scope away from customers and products that compete head-on with the main job. - Access sized for one day a week. Only the repositories and folders that piece of work needs, closed when it ends. ## How do you review someone who is there one day a week? Against deliverables agreed at the start. Hours online and reply speed are the wrong yardstick. A one-day-a-week person will be slow on Slack. Put them on the same review form as full-time staff and they lose points on teamwork and initiative almost by design. The score ends up measuring how little they are around. What works better: agree two or three things to deliver in the quarter, each with a plain definition of done. Hold a 30-minute check-in once a month to look at progress and adjust scope. At quarter end, look only at those things. If the instinct is to watch more closely, the data in [Does Monitoring Raise Performance?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/monitoring-and-performance?hsLang=en) is not encouraging. One moment is easy to miss. When it goes well, you will want a second day. A second day means redoing the hours math, the 36 agreement and the conversation with the main employer. Since the 2022 revision, the guidelines say companies should ideally publish whether they allow side jobs and on what terms. Before you sign someone, look at what their main employer has published. It often tells you more than asking the person, and it tells you early whether the management model is even on the table. This article is general information, not legal advice. For worker-status questions, how to combine hours in a specific case, and how to draft 36 agreements or non-compete clauses, consult a Japanese labor and social security attorney (sharoushi) or a lawyer. The hours example is an assumption. Facts as of November 2026. Sources (as of November 2026) - [MHLW, Guidelines for Promoting Side Jobs and Concurrent Employment (revised July 2022, Japanese)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11200000/000962665.pdf) - [MHLW, Side jobs and concurrent employment: revision history, management model, Q&A (Japanese)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000192188.html) - [MHLW, Freelance guidelines and the Act on Ensuring Proper Transactions Involving Specified Entrusted Business Operators, in force November 1, 2024 (Japanese)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/koyou_roudou/koyoukintou/zaitaku/index_00002.html) - [Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2022 Employment Status Survey, summary of results (Japanese)](https://www.stat.go.jp/data/shugyou/2022/pdf/kyouyaku.pdf) --- Author [Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en) Launching in Japan, starting with people and systems. I write about building organizations, sales teams and technology organizations in Japan, in English, Japanese and Chinese. [Profile](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)[Contact](https://nobusato.jp/en/contact?hsLang=en) ## More in this column 1. 01[Reading Engagement Scores in Japan: What to Check First](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/reading-engagement-survey-scores?hsLang=en)6 min Gallup puts Japan at 8% engaged, and Japanese answers lean to the middle. When your score drops, check respondents, the ... 2. 02[Is Their Japanese Enough? How Employers Judge Engineers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/is-their-japanese-enough-employer-view?hsLang=en)6 min The JLPT N1 tests reading and listening, not speaking or writing. The four work situations Japanese employers care ... 3. 03[Yakushoku Teinen: Designing Roles for Managers After 55](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/yakushoku-teinen-design?hsLang=en)7 min 22.3% of Japanese firms remove managers from posts at a set age, 30.4% of large ones. Four role designs for the five ... [Column guide: Organizations & Hiring](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/guide-organizations-and-hiring?hsLang=en) · [Glossary](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/glossary?hsLang=en) · [The method behind the articles](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/method?hsLang=en) [← All articles](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog?hsLang=en) ## Writing about launching in Japan, in three languages. [Profile](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en) [Get in touch](https://nobusato.jp/en/contact?hsLang=en) Nobu Sato Writing about launching in Japan, in three languages. 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