Japanese Job Ad Conventions: Salary, Bonus, Days Off, Insurance

A chef in Japan reads an overseas job ad with the same conventions as a Japanese one. State pay as annual and monthly figures separately, write the bonus as a count and basis or say there is none, use 完全週休2日制 only for two days off every week and give annual days off as a number, and name your local insurance instead of writing 社会保険完備. Fixed overtime pay must be split into three lines.

1. Pay: annual, monthly, yearly salary, hourly

Your reader compares every figure with pay at home. In the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's 2025 wage survey, food preparation workers received ¥286,600 a month in regular pay (June 2025) and ¥351,600 in annual bonus (2024), about ¥3.79 million a year. Each Japanese way of writing pay carries its own expectation:

Write the contract amount in your currency and add yen only as a reference with the rate and date: 参考円換算 約○万円（1ドル＝○円、2026年9月1日時点）. If the yen figure is mistaken for the contract amount, a currency move becomes a dispute.

2. Bonus (賞与)

The survey figures above put the annual bonus at about 1.2 months of regular pay. Chefs in Japan expect a bonus line and read its absence as bad news. Write one of these:

• Performance bonus: 賞与 年1回、業績に応じて支給（保証なし。年収には含めていません）
• Bonus with a track record: 賞与 年2回（前年度実績 計○か月分）, only if you have paid it before.
• No bonus: 賞与なし（年俸を12分割で支給）

Avoid 当社規定により支給 ("paid according to company rules"). It tells the reader nothing and is read as "possibly zero". Tips and service charge are not 賞与; list them separately and say they are not guaranteed.

3. Fixed overtime pay (固定残業代)

If you pay a fixed allowance for a set number of overtime hours whether or not they are worked, the ministry's recruiting leaflet requires three separate lines:

1. 基本給 ○○（(2)の手当を除く額）
2. 固定残業手当 ○○（時間外労働の有無にかかわらず、○時間分の時間外手当として支給）
3. ○時間を超える時間外労働分についての割増賃金は追加で支給

Whether a fixed overtime arrangement is lawful in your country is a separate question for local advice. If you do not use one, write overtime simply: 時間外労働 あり（月平均○時間）、現地の法律に基づき割増賃金を支給. "残業代込み" alone reads as a long hours job.

4. Days off: the terms and what they promise

The ministry's working conditions survey classes two days off three times a month, every other week, twice or once a month as "substantially fewer days off than 完全週休2日制". In its 2025 edition, 65.5% of companies used 完全週休2日制, the average company gave 112.4 annual days off in 2024 (paid leave excluded by definition), and accommodation and food services had the lowest paid leave uptake at 50.7%.

For a restaurant open every day, these lines leave no room for doubt:

• 完全週休2日制（シフト制）。年間休日104日＋有給休暇 年○日
• 12月は週休1日の週が最大2回あり。その分は1〜2月に振替
• 一時帰国休暇 年1回（連続○日まで、有給休暇とは別）

Home leave is one of the most effective lines in an overseas ad. MAFF's programme for foreign culinary trainees in Japan requires each training plan to cover leave long enough for a trip home, so the idea is familiar to the trade (see the MAFF trainee programme).

5. Insurance: replacing 社会保険完備

In the ministry's own example, the insurance line of a Japanese ad reads 雇用保険、労災保険、厚生年金、健康保険, and 社会保険完備 is shorthand for enrolment in those Japanese schemes. An employer abroad does not provide them, so write what applies to your case:

Japanese nationals aged 20 to 64 living abroad may join the national pension voluntarily. Add whether you pay for private medical cover; families read that line too.

6. Five fields that stop applications, rewritten

Every ［要記入］ is yours to fill in. None of them is a market figure.

7. Worked example: the conditions block

The conditions block of an ad for a cook in Singapore, written to the conventions above. Days, hours and benefits are illustrative; pay is left as placeholders on purpose. For the full ad including duties and application steps, see the sample in writing a job ad for chefs in Japan.

8. What to do this week

• Rewrite your pay line with both ends of the range, and a dated yen reference.
• Choose one of the three bonus lines.
• Count days off per week and per year, then pick the right term.
• Check whether your country has a social security agreement with Japan and write the insurance line.
• Run your current ad through the before and after table.

Where to publish the finished ad is compared in job boards and channels for chefs in Japan.

General information, not legal or immigration advice. Disclosure duties and employer obligations depend on the country and the form of employment, and rules change. Check the primary sources below and take advice where needed.