Bandai Namco has reportedly turned to the unspoken Japanese tradition of layoff-by-boredom by stuffing unwanted employees into oidashi beya, or “expulsion rooms.”
Employees banished reassigned to oidashi beya are left to do nothing, or given menial tasks at best. According to Bloomberg’s unnamed insider sources, Bandai Namco has moved around 200 of its 1,300 person team to these rooms in recent months.
The goal of sticking someone in an expulsion room is to literally bore or shame them into quitting, and Bloomberg’s sources claim it has worked on around half the people Bandai Namco has stuck in there so far.
In the past, many employees have won wrongful termination lawsuits for this type of behavior. In Japan, employers have a legal duty to give their employees some kind of work.
(The authors were lazy here. This is not a secret thing.)