You shouldn't feel that way.  Labor protection is much, much stronger in Japan than the US, or many other first-world nations, for that matter.  Having said that he's right to point out that the social contract is generally more important, however if you're being taken advantage of the law is on your side.<p>As for self-employment I can't imagine it's much harder, if for no other reason than health insurance/care is cheap and easy to come by, but I don't have any direct experience there.  Seems to be a fair bit of self-employed IT folks in Tokyo though, particularly among non-Japanese.