Japanese Company Pays Barely More Than Minimum Wage, But Offers Free Booze And 'Hangover Leave'

One probably a lot of businesses that only pay minimum wage have is that they typically get a lot of turnover. Employees wind up moving on to better-paying jobs.

But one Japanese company found a solution to this problem: booze.

I believe it was Homer Simpson who once described alcohol as "the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems," and he seems to be right.

The company in question, according to Fortune, is Trust Ring Co., a tech company based in Osaka, Japan. The birth rate in the Land of the Rising Sun is down, and that means that prospective employers are having to pull out all the stops to lure prospective Gen Z employees into their workforce.

So, Trust Ring Co. decided to take the frat house approach and got themselves a beer tap and some bottles of liquor and started offering some drinks to their employees while they're on the job.

That's unusual, but not unheard of, and I can see why something like that would lure people entering the workforce to the company.

But Trust Ring Co. takes this a step further. What happens if you go to work on Monday and have some drinks, but then once the work day is over you hit the bars (I'd go to one of those bars with the robot shows. Those seem great).

Well, you could wind up with a nasty hangover, of course.

This is precisely why this company has decided to offer "hangover leave" to its employees.

A tech company in Japan is offering free drinks and 'hangover leave' to its employees. (Getty Images)

This doesn't give the employees the day off to nurse their hangovers, but it does allow workers who were supposed to be in the office at 9 am a little bit of a grace period so they can eat some greasy food, guzzle some Pedialyte and get to the office around noon.

And this seems to be working because Trust Ring Co. pays just 222,000 yen per month which comes out to around $17,500, however, the company — which employs around 60 people — says they've experienced zero turnover.

I don't know if we'll see this kind of policy come stateside, but I'm sure more than a few people have their fingers crossed that it does.