The head of Japanese advertising¹ group Dentsu is to step down following the suicide of an employee who had worked hundreds of hours of overtime².

在一位员工加班数百小时自杀之后，日本广告集团电通的总裁即将下台。

Tadashi Ishii said he would tender his resignation at a January board meeting.

石井直称，他将在一月的董事会上递交辞呈。

Matsuri Takahashi, 24, jumped to her death in December last year and in a note left for her mother, she asked: "Why do things have to be so hard?".

去年十二月，24岁的高桥茉莉跳楼自杀，在留给妈妈的便条上，她不禁发问：“为什么如此艰辛？”

She had started working at Dentsu in April 2015 and was soon doing an additional 100 hours a month.

2015年4月，她开始在电通工作，不久后，每月的加班时间就达100小时。

Dentsu has been under pressure to reduce the amount of overtime its employees do and in November it was raided by labour regulators.

电通集团一直面临着减少员工加班量的压力，去年十一月，劳动省监管员对电通展开了突然调查。

In September, the Japanese government ruled that Ms Takahashi's death had been caused by overwork. She would often return home at 5am after spending all day and night at the office.

去年九月，日本政府裁定高桥女士是过劳死。在办公室待了一天一夜后，她通常于早上五点回到家中。

Mr Ishii, who has been chief executive in 2011, said: "This is something that should never have been allowed to happen."

于2011年担任首席执行官的石井直先生表示：“这是不应该允许发生的事情。”

While Dentsu is attempting to curtail overwork - by turning off lights at the headquarters at 10pm - it admitted that more than 100 workers were still doing an extra 80 hours a month.

尽管电通集团正通过晚上十点关闭总部电灯的方式来缩减加班，但是该集团也承认，仍有百余名员工每月的加班时间超过了80小时。

Death linked to exhaustion in Japan is so common that there is a word, "karoshi", to describe it. According to government figures, about 2,000 people a year kill themselves because of overwork.

在日本，疲劳致死非常普遍，以至于专有一个词"karoshi"用来描述它。据政府的数据显示，每年约有2000人因加班而死。