Japanese workers turn to resignation agencies

I don't get why these companies would want to keep employing someone who has stated that they want to quit.

Same. It’s over, you won’t get performance or loyalty above some cold baseline, while still paying for the most expensive class of resources. What’s the point even?

I can guess that maybe it’s a well-known cultural thing that only prevents people of this culture to think about leaving. A sort of a group control thing.

if I was a douchebag boss, I would manipulate them into staying then publicly reprimand and fire them shortly thereafter to come out a "winner" in the situation. I haven't seen managers stoop that low yet, but state-side I've seen managers take extreme personal offense and paranoia about team morale when there was even one flight risk on the horizon. (omg they didn't even pay $100k for their once-in-a-lifetime chance to exercise our magic stock!)

Where I live, getting fired entails getting severance. Something you don't get when quitting. I would rather be fired then to quit myself...

If your dog, which is your property, decided it just wanted to go live across the street instead, would you just shrug and say OK?

That's basically their mindset.