Japan firm asks staff not to smoke cigarettes even if working from home

To enhance employee health, Japan's largest brokerage company, Nomura, has advised its workers not to smoke during working hours, even if they work from home.

The company released a memo stating that the new policy will take effect in October.

According to Nomura spokesperson Yoshitaka Otsu, the company would not monitor or discipline its employees because the rules will be based on mutual trust. 

Nomura said in a separate statement on Wednesday that the steps are being implemented to establish a positive working atmosphere, reduce secondhand smoking, and enhance employee health. 

"There needs to be an environment in which everyone is healthy and can live lively in order for employees to fully demonstrate their ability, characters," it said. 

According to Nomura's website, the company wants to lower the smoking rate among its employees in Japan to 12% by 2025, down from 20% in March 2020.

Since 2017, the brokerage has offered financial assistance to workers who want to quit, according to Otsu. 

According to an estimate released earlier this year by an international team of experts, over 7.69 million people died globally in 2019 from a range of smoking-related ailments, including about 200,000 in Japan.

According to the estimate published in the British medical journal the Lancet, China had the most deaths with 2.42 million, accounting for about 30% of the global total, followed by India with 1.01 million, the United States with 530,000, Russia with 290,000, and Indonesia with 250,000. 

(With inputs from agencies)