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Premium Friday
Finally from 24 Feb (Fri) onwards
a new endeavour will start.
The newly introduced “Premium Friday”.
It means “Fruitful Friday”.
In the US from November, many shops get profit (black in balance sheet) during the year-end sales season
such idea “Black Friday” inspired the campaign this time.
To be specific,
On every last Friday of the month the duty will be off around 15:00,
After that, for instance, people go to dining,
or go enjoy sports with friends, or go a journey,
to pass a bit fruitful weekend, the campaign is for such purpose.
Thus far over 2000 companies agree with such campaign.
In accordance with this endeavour
there are also corporates which prepare event and special plan.
For instance here, only available on Premium Friday
a plan named “Premium Ebi Fry Day”
big fried shrimp costing 1300yen
such buffet will be available.
And then, plan named “Premium Flight Day”
which is to experience operating drone free of charge.
Then why now,
Premium Friday is introduced?
One reason is to spur consumption.
Experts estimate that
in circumstances that all corporates implement Premium Friday
there will be an economic impact
of around 123.6 billion yen per day.
This is a figure close to the estimated market volume of Valentine’s Day.
And then now, to reduce over-time hours
the debate on “working style reform” is on progress.
If Premium Friday is well adopted,
it is expected that the working hour can be shortened.
Because of these reasons the government and economy sector as the center
call for Premium Friday.
On the other hand, there is also reserved opinion towards the impact of the campaign.
According to the opinion poll conducted by NNN in January
As for the question “Introduction of Premium Friday”
32.4% of respondents answered “have positive evaluation towards it”
while a surpassed 54.7% answered “do not have positive evaluation towards it”.
Because,
the corporate which the operating hours cannot change because of correspondence with customers and
small-to-medium enterprises of which the labour is not adequate find it difficult to introduce this campaign,
it seems that only limited corporates will join the campaign.
Because of this the actual economic impact is estimated to be around 1/12 of that when all corporates join, i.e. around 10 billion yen.
Also, on Premium Friday money is spent
while after that people have to “save money”,
there is also concern about “spending future money”.
As for shortening of working hours,
while work duty ends earlier on Friday,
“it will only cause trouble on other days”
such concern is heard.
Many corporates choose to wait and see this time
whether Premium Friday can become widespread
first of all, the first time i.e. 24 February (Friday) would be the key.
Source: News Zeroイチメン (http://www.ntv.co.jp/zero/ichimen/2017/02/post-336.html)