Japanese man earns $80,000 a year for ‘not doing anything’: Report

Shoji Morimoto, 41, earns around $80,000 a year for “doing nothing,” according to a CNBC Make It report.

Morimoto is known as the rental “do nothing” guy in Japan. His job is to loan himself out to strangers who seek company.

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The requests he gets range from waiting for a marathon runner at the finishing line, to being video-called while a bored client redecorates and cleans her room, according to the report.

Once, a client who couldn’t attend a concert with a friend, rented Morimoto to take her place.

Morimoto will do anything like this, except sexual activities.

Ironically, this comes after Morimoto was fired from his job in 2018 for lacking initiative and “not doing anything” of value for the company, according to his manager.

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“I have been put in objectively difficult situations, such as standing in line under the blazing sun, standing for hours in the cold, attending parties with only strangers, and standing alone on a stage in front of a large audience without doing anything,” the report quoted Morimoto, the father of a seven-year-old as saying. “However, no matter what misfortune I have experienced, I feel that it is something special that only happened because I do this job, so I can still cherish it.”

He receives about 1,000 requests per year but lets his clients decide how much they want to pay him. However, he used to charge a flat rate between 10,000 yen and 30,000 yen ($65 to $195) for a two- to three-hour session, which earned him around $80,000 last year.

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“This is a good match with the recent needs of Japanese people, who do not seek love or marriage, and do not want the hassle of such relationships, but want someone they can casually go on dates with or have dinner with,” the report quoted Ai Sakata, a consultant at Nomura Research Institute as saying.

Japan has a slew of rental services for temporary girlfriends, boyfriends, friends and even family due to loneliness being a prevalent aspect.

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