According to the article by Business Insider, former president of the United States Barack Obama opposes the idea that government employees don’t work hard. He thinks that perception comes from Departments of Motor Vehicles, which is state government, not the federal, and handles renewing driver’s license.
It is interesting to know that people in America have the same idea about their government as most Japanese do about theirs.
The reason that people have the perception of lazy government workers is government don’t have a clear quantitive goals. In a corporate world, the simple measurement of achievement is profit. If they make it more, they are doing good. However, when it comes to government, it’s really hard to measure how well it is doing. Is it the satisfaction of the citizens? Is it economic growth? Is it the rate of birth if it’s the rural municipality suffering from the decreasing population. With no clear goals, there is no way you can perform well.
I have work experience in Japanese government, and I often hear people have bad ideas about government, especially city government. They have bad experiences when they issue residential certificate or file tax at city hall. Because people visit city government more often than national government and have more contacts with city employees, city government employees are more likely to be criticized.
People employed in national government, such as Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, are usually said to be one of the hardest workers in Japan. They often leave their offices after midnight and come back to office early in the next morning. City-level government workers, on the other hand, are said to leave office soon after the regular work hours (Although in some departments in the City Office is far from this dream work condition). They are often describes as lazy workers.
This happens because Japan has very hierarchical government system; it operate on a very top-down system. So in this system, city government, ranked at the lowest bottom, usually does work that was told by higher government, Prefecture or National government. As a result, workers in this lowest tier don’t need to seek new opportunities or projects.
Because of this system, elite students, graduates from such as University of Tokyo, tends to get a job in National Government. Students from these universities are highly motivated and hard workers. They passed one of the most difficult university entrance exams in the world. They study for 10+ hours a day to enter top level universities. Because they have such a high motivation, they work really hard in the office, too. Compared to them, city-level government workers are not as hard-working.
However, this does not apply to every single workers in each government level. There sure is lazy workers in National level and great passionate workers in city level as well.
And I believe it is the same in private sectors. There are always lazy workers in any environment just like bee world, where only 20% of bees work hard in a hive.
Take it up!! 