On 22 July, the day Japan recorded more heatstroke ambulance transports than any day since the count began, 744 of the 4,105 people taken to hospital were picked up from a worksite — 668 from construction sites and factories, 76 from farms, forests and waterways. It is the largest single-day workplace figure in the decade the fire agency has coded transports by location, and 18.1% of that day against a season average near 11%.
Japan made workplace heatstroke measures compulsory on 1 June 2025, through an amendment to the Ordinance on Industrial Safety and Health carrying up to six months’ imprisonment or a ¥500,000 fine. The duty is narrower than the coverage of it suggested. Article 612-2 requires an employer to run a system for reporting workers with symptoms or suspected symptoms, and to have written procedures for removing them from the work, cooling them and getting them examined. The labour ministry’s implementing circular describes the purpose as early detection and stopping cases from becoming severe. It imposes no obligation to prevent the heatstroke.
Measured against that design, the first full year reads as the rule working rather than failing. The ministry’s own count of workplace heatstroke casualties — cases causing death or four or more days off work — reached 1,803 in 2025, up about 43% on the previous year and the highest since the series began in 2005. Deaths fell over the same period from 31 to 19, a drop of about 39%. A regime that asks employers to report and escalate should be expected to surface more cases and lose fewer of them.
The 2026 figures remain provisional; the fire agency revises its daily counts monthly, and July’s revision is due around 22 August.