Wiktionary
n. An employee, a worker; now especially a Japanese white-collar worker who works long hours and has an insignificant position within the corporate hierarchy. (from 18th c.)
Wikipedia
refers to a man whose income is salary based, particularly those working for corporations. It has gradually become accepted in Anglophone countries as a noun for a Japanese white-collar worker or businessman. The term salaryman refers exclusively to men; for women the term career woman or, for lower prestige jobs office lady is used.
Japan's society prepares its people to work primarily for the good of the whole society rather than just the individual himself, and the salaryman is a part of that. He is expected to work long hours, additional overtime, to participate in after-work leisure activities such as drinking and visiting hostess bars with his colleagues, and to value work over all else. The salaryman typically enters a company when he graduates college and stays with that corporation his whole career. Other popular notions surrounding salarymen include karÅshi, or death from overwork. In conservative Japanese culture, becoming a salaryman is the expected career choice for young men and those who do not take this career path are regarded as living with a stigma and less prestige. On the other hand, the word Salaryman is sometimes used with derogatory connotation for his total dependence on his employer and lack of individuality.
Usage examples of "salaryman".
Though he often denied ittoo loudlyit was pretty clear Hitchcock felt no small degree of resentment at having been bypassed for captain in favor of an outsider, a mere salaryman from the land-based sector of the Company.
Having been only a junior salaryman when he had first encountered her network, Sato had benefited from the association.
It was, in fact, a corporate icon, a chrome salaryman in his chrome suit.
Like a good salaryman Carpenter took whatever assignment was handed him, and made sure to master the skills that were required.
A woman named Sanborn, Salaryman Nine at the Samurai Headquarters Pyramid in Manitoba.
Carpenter was still sailing under Samurai colors: a Level Eleven salaryman, coming to Chicago for the Company.
Somebody falling down from salaryman level is going to have a hard time getting anywhere, when there are so many ahead of him in the underclass who have clean records.
But when did you ever hear of a Level Eleven salaryman being terminated, cause or no cause, and simply accepting it without appeal?
He was a typical Japanese salaryman, with a boring job, a good salary, benefits, a wife and no doubt children at home.
Someone grabbed his ass, and as he slithered through the dance floor, a Japanese salaryman with a wedding ring kissed him hard on the lips.
Nishitsu salaryman picked up a microphone and began announcing his arrival in English and Japanese.
Japanese stumbled away, holding his head and staggering off like a salaryman full of saki.
He wore a dark suit and fedora with a germ mask over his face, like any midlevel salaryman afflicted with a head cold but duty-bound to go to work.
American salaryman, he was the picture of wealthy leisure, his leggings either genuine leather or the best substitute Konstantin had ever seen.
First an unemployed salaryman had run amok with a sword, killing three people and wounding ten others before jumping in front of an oncoming train.