In Japan, a disturbing and silent phenomenon exists: thousands of people vanish each year as jōhatsu, “the evaporated.” Behind many of these disappearances are the yonige-ya (よにげ屋 or yonige-ya), agencies known as “fly-by-night shops.” They are private agencies that, for a fee that can exceed $2,500, help those who overwhelmed by debt, domestic violence, professional failure, or social shame, decide to cover their tracks. These companies pack belongings in the early morning, arrange for new addresses, and even advise on how to remain undetected and protected by strict privacy laws that limit police searches when no crime has been committed. In Japan, this phenomenon has encompassed up to 100,000 people per year, which is an amount worth considering in light of the strong social pressure towards compliance, honor and stability, which makes disappearing a preferable way out for many in desperate situations.
The Japanese labor system, although rigid, allows companies to treat these absences as tacit resignations or ordinary dismissals if the internal regulations so provide. The employer must exhaust all available alternatives and, barring exceptions, comply with the notice period or pay compensation. Within this framework, yonige-ya operates in an ambiguous space: they do not commit a crime if they merely facilitate voluntary flight, but their existence reveals cracks in the country’s social and corporate fabric.
What if a similar service were to emerge in Mexico? Under the Federal Labor Law, a worker who disappears for more than three days without just cause constitutes grounds for dismissal (Article 47, Section X), which allows the employer to terminate the contract without compensation, but with a proportional severance pay. “Escape agencies” could face fraud or concealment charges if they help evade debts or legal proceedings. Culturally, voluntary disappearance would lack social acceptance: the concept would be seen more as a breach of contract and a potential crime than as a “new beginning.”
The contrast illuminates how norms and values shape different responses to the same human impulse: flight to reinvent oneself. Japan quietly tolerates evaporation; Mexico, on the other hand, would activate its legal and social defenses to close the door to a similar phenomenon.
AUTHOR
Jorge Sales Boyoli is one of the most influential labour lawyers in labour matters in Mexico and in the T-MEC region. An expert in negotiation and resolution of labour and union disputes, he has contributed to creating stability and labour peace with a large number of employers in Mexico, the United States and Canada, contributing to the generation of sources of work in trends such as nearshoring and outsourcing (today the provision of specialised services).
With extensive experience in highly complex labour litigation and a strategic vision in consulting, he is currently managing partner of the firm Sales Boyoli Abogados Laborales, founded more than twenty years ago and positioned as one of the leading firms and the one that best combines a deep knowledge of the Mexican market with experience in labour matters and an excellent positioning with the labour authorities.
