Subaru Corporation admitted it did not pay overtime to more than 3,400 employees over a period of two years between 2015 and 2017, according to local reports in Japan.
The practice came to light during an internal investigation into the 2016 suicide of a white collar employee who jumped off the roof of a Subaru factory in what authorities ruled as karoshi, or death from overwork. He had been due JPY4.1m (US$37,300) in unpaid overtime. The family is still negotiating a settlement with the company.
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The findings of the investigation were first made public last week by representatives of the deceased worker's family. The Japanese automaker later admitted that thousands of its workers had "under reported" their working hours during this period which helped the company meet performance targets.
The investigation revealed the majority of Subaru workers under reported overtime hours "so as not to exceed the limit for the budget for overtime work".
During this period, Subaru enjoyed strong global sales, driven by buoyant demand for models such as the Forester SUV in the US.
Subaru said it has since taken action to prevent workers being able to under report their actual work hours.
In 2017 Subaru was found to have carried out flawed final inspections on its vehicles, which forced it to recall some 400,000 vehicles in Japan.
It most recently had to stop production at its only Japanese factory due to faulty power steering parts.
