Premium Friday is a campaign to promote

consumer spending Consumer spending is the total money spent on final goods and services by individuals and households. There are two components of consumer spending: induced consumption (which is affected by the level of income) and autonomous consumption (which ...

advocated by the Japanese government and Japanese business organizations. It had been expected to have a favorable effect to the movement to improve work style. The campaign was temporarily suspended during the

COVID-19 outbreak The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Soon after, ...

, and the official site promoting Premium Friday stopped updating after October 2022. The site was eventually shut down on June 1, 2023.

Background

It is a campaign promoted by the Japanese business sector led by the

Government of Japan The Government of Japan is the central government of Japan. It consists of legislative, executive (government), executive and judiciary branches and functions under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan. Japan is a unitary st ...

and

Japan Business Federation The is an economic organization founded in May 2002 by amalgamation of Keidanren (, Japan Federation of Economic Organizations, established 1946; name sometimes used alone as abbreviation for whole organization) and Nikkeiren (, Japan Federatio ...

recommending to spend more enriched life every last Friday each month. Tied up with a movement to improve work style, it is recommending to end work at 15:00. Since last Friday of a month end tends to be when salary has just been paid, it is advocating to spend the afternoon shopping or travelling. This has been implemented on February 24, 2017. The initiative is part of an attempt to address the punishingly long hours many Japanese are expected to work, prompted by the suicide of a 24-year-old employee at the advertising firm

Dentsu , simply known as , stylized as dentsu, is a Japanese international advertising and public relations joint stock company headquartered in Tokyo. Dentsu is the largest advertising agency in Japan and the fifth largest advertising agency network in ...

who was doing more than 100 hours' overtime in the months before her death. While some major companies, such as

Honda commonly known as just Honda, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate automotive manufacturer headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in October 1946 by Soichiro Honda, Honda has bee ...

, the drinks maker

Suntory (commonly referred to as simply Suntory) is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational brewing and distilling company group. Established in 1899, it is one of the oldest companies in the distribution of alcoholic beverages in Japan, and ...

and the confectioner Morinaga, have adopted the optional scheme, others are less enthusiastic about the prospect of a mid-afternoon staff exodus. A survey of 155 big companies by the Nikkei business newspaper showed that 45% had no immediate plans to implement the scheme, with 37% saying they had either decided to enter into the spirit of Premium Friday or had plans to do so.

References

Consumerism Work–life balance Government of Japan Friday 2017 introductions 2017 establishments in Japan {{japan-gov-stub