Nearly 60% of Japanese restaurants still instructing employees to wear masks

Nearly 60% of restaurants in Japan are still instructing their employees to wear masks, even after the central government eased face-covering guidelines on March 13, according to Osaka-based Cookbiz Co., which operates a restaurant job search website.

On March 13th, the Japanese government allowed the wearing of masks indoors and outdoors to the discretion of individuals. Cookbiz conducted a survey on restaurants about masks. According to the results released on March 29, 59.2% of respondents said they had continued to instruct their employees to wear masks after March 13, while 34.6% said they now leave it to the judgment of the staff themselves. The survey was conducted over the internet between March 20 and 26 targeting managers and staffing chiefs at restaurants nationwide, and 130 valid responses were received.

The most common response was that they used to ask customers to wear masks when they entered the restaurant, but stopped doing so now, at 62.3%. 6.2% of restaurants are still asking customers to wear masks when entering or leaving.

More than half of restaurants had decided to remove them due to partitions and other measures to block airborne droplets, with 38.5% saying they had partially removed them, and 17.7% saying they had completely removed them.

A yakiniku grilled meat restaurant in the Kanto region said in a free description area about the easing of mask use that customers strongly demand mask use and those who are against masks, and both groups ask the business to follow their preference. It is very difficult to deal with them, the eatery said.

Cookbiz said restaurants, which deal with a large number of customers, face a high hurdle in removing masks.