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The departure hall at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Now with inflation at its strongest in decades, Japanese are starting to realize that years of static wages leave many of them budgeting each month before their next pay check.
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Apr 13, 2024

Japan’s young workers head abroad as huge wage gap persists

The outflow is also a sign that many Japanese aren’t buying into the nation’s economic optimism as it exits from decades of deflation.
An electronic board shows stock indexes at the Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai on March 21, 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 17, 2024

China's money managers lament loss of quality research amid analyst cutbacks

A prolonged market slump has reduced trading commissions as authorities tighten limits around what research analysts are allowed to publish.
Cleaning worker Hu Dexi, 67, at a shopping mall in Beijing on April 10
BUSINESS / Economy
May 8, 2024

In rapidly aging China, millions can't afford to retire

With a low retirement age, meager pension benefits and no family to support them, many in China feel they simply can't ever stop working.
Ryu Kawane works at the Costco store in Meiwa, Gunma Prefecture. Costco's high pay has triggered wage hikes at other businesses in town.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 6, 2024

Costco's Japan wages provide pathway to firing up nation's low pay and economy

A sustainable rise in wages is a key goal for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the Bank of Japan says it's a crucial factor for normalizing monetary policy.
Richard Katz argues in his new book that the key to Japan emerging from decades of economic sluggishness depends on stimulating companies with high energy and dynamism, over the lumbering, older firms.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 20, 2024

Hope for Japan, if the elephants get out of the way

Protecting older companies, the jobs they have produced and the political and financial relationships they have nurtured, starves newer, more innovative businesses.
An Aeon store in Yokohama in 2022. Aeon currently employs about 1,500 specified skilled workers group-wide.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 26, 2024

Aeon to ramp up hiring of foreign workers under specified skills visa framework

The retail giant is planning to employ 4,000 foreign workers with specified skilled worker visas by 2030 amid a labor shortage.
Ayaka Saito works on a lathe to make a part for a ship at Ena Seisakusho in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture. Saito, who has a 1-year-old child, takes comfort in the fact that her employer allows time off for workers for parenting duties.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Jul 8, 2024

Special skills allow Fukushima mother to shine in full-time job

Her employer also lets her take time off to care for her child, a rare policy seen as pivotal in getting more women back to the workforce.
How policymakers have responded to past economic crises, such as the 2008-09 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, will shape their preparedness in dealing with future recessions. 
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2024

Policy lessons from recent economic crises

Eventually, the world will face another recession. How will policymakers use the lessons learned from the 2008-09 financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic to respond?
Ryo Ogawa (right), chief executive officer of Timee, and Tomoaki Yagi, chief financial officer, strike the trading bell during the company's listing ceremony at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo on Friday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 26, 2024

Shares of job app firm Timee jump in Japan stock trading debut

The stock surged to as high as ¥1,855 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Growth market.
Japan's unemployment rate edged lower to 2.5% in June from 2.6% a month earlier.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 30, 2024

Japan’s labor market stays tight, supporting wage growth

Japan's unemployment rate edged lower to 2.5% in June from 2.6% a month earlier, the Internal Affairs Ministry reported.
A passenger ferry sails toward Sydney Harbor on Aug. 9. Employees in Australia, in most cases, cannot be punished for refusing to read or respond to contacts from their employers outside work hours, thanks to a new law.
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2024

Australian workers gain right to ignore work emails and calls after hours

A new "right to disconnect" law is designed to curb the creep of work communications into personal lives.
People walk along a street during morning rush hour near the Financial Street in Beijing on Oct. 8.
BUSINESS
Oct 16, 2024

Chinese finance professionals switch careers amid industry crackdown

The tightening scrutiny of trading, financing and dealmaking in China has brought pay and job cuts.
Police discovered the body of a 75-year-old man in his home in Aoba Ward, Yokohama, on Wednesday and are investigating the case for any connections to a string of robberies in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 17, 2024

Robberies in Kanto region may be linked to 'dark' part-time jobs

Because similar methods were used in the break-ins, police are probing whether the cases are connected.
Trucks are parked at a convenience store truck stop used by long-distance drivers, in the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture in September.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 20, 2024

New rules drive Japanese trucking sector to the brink

Despite its importance to the world's fourth-biggest economy, the trucking industry occupies a weak position in Japan's economic hierarchy.
Japan's jobless rate decreased to 2.4% in September, falling to its lowest level since January.
BUSINESS
Oct 29, 2024

Job market tightened in September, supporting wage gains and BOJ policy goals

Higher demand for workers is expected to pressure companies to raise salaries to retain them, potentially feeding into a virtuous cycle between prices and wages.
Osaka police arrested Yuji Imai, 37, along with Hiroshi Shima, 21, who had already been arrested and indicted on two other similar cases.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 15, 2024

Suspected ringleader of burglaries linked to 'dark' jobs arrested in Osaka

Osaka police believe Yuji Imai, 37, ordered the break-ins and sent out instructions to recruit more grunt workers.
A poster in the Tamil language advertises smartphone assembly roles outside a shop in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, in India, on Oct. 28.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 18, 2024

Foxconn tells India recruiters: Nix marital status in iPhone job ads

The move follows an investigation published June 25 that found Foxconn excluded married women from jobs at its main India iPhone assembly plant.
The challenge for African governments and communities is how to harness this wave of youthful talent — with all their innovation, resilience and determination — rather than lose them to developed economies.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2024

Africa must act to stem its youth brain drain

African governments must harness youthful talent or risk losing it to developed economies.
"Agent" technology goes further than chatbots, not just performing parlor tricks and spitting out plausible responses to queries but actually doing the kinds of repetitive tasks that today are handled by millions of humans.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 14, 2024

Big Tech's new AI obsession: 'Agents' that do your work for you

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman calls agents "the next giant breakthrough," while Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says the shift "is really the rise of digital labor.”
Self-Defense Force members march in formation at Camp Asaka, which straddles Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture, during a ceremony on Nov. 9.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 21, 2024

Japan ready to improve working conditions for SDF members

Improving working conditions for the members "is a serious challenge" for his administration, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told a meeting of relevant Cabinet ministers.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk watch a fight during UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden in New York on Nov. 16, 2024.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 6, 2025

MAGA's infighting sparks fears of a chaotic Trump White House

The furor over whether to welcome skilled foreign workers has exposed deep fault lines between Trump's supporters.
To counter the impact of aging rural demographics, the agriculture ministry is introducing a new initiative to dispatch corporate personnel to rural areas to increase the number of people engaged with farming communities.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 13, 2025

Japan farm ministry aims to dispatch corporate workers to rural areas

The initiative aims to promote rural revitalization through corporate-sponsored training programs and employee side jobs connecting businesses with farming villages.
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington on Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Jan 19, 2025

Democrats search for economic policy lessons as Trump takes office

Scarred by the 2007-09 recession, the Biden administration bet big on the labor market. The bet worked but not exactly as they hoped.
Sanjay in front of his home in Texas
WORLD / Politics
Jan 28, 2025

Trump’s birthright citizenship rattles H-1B visa workers expecting a baby

The U.S. is fairly unique in offering unconditional birthright citizenship, creating a special enticement for foreign workers.
U.S. President Donald Trump listens alongside Elon Musk as he explains the administration's cost-cutting efforts in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 16, 2025

Fired U.S. nuclear bomb specialists recalled by Energy Department

The employees, responsible for designing and maintaining U.S. nuclear weapons, were part of a larger wave of mass dismissals, drawing alarm from national security experts.
Elon Musk holds up a chainsaw onstage during the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Feb. 20.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 26, 2025

Musk's new ultimatum spurs fresh confusion among U.S. government workers

President Donald Trump said workers who did not respond would be "sort of semi-fired," adding to the uncertainty.
A woman who works at a private university in Fukuoka Prefecture as a part-time lecturer is still negotiating with the university over a cut in the number of classes she teaches.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Mar 10, 2025

'Highly educated working poor': Part-time lecturers lament stagnant wages

Many worry that raising their voices could lead to a reduction in classes, which impacts pay, or even dismissal.
Pedestrians commute through Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, an area that is almost never devoid of people.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Mar 3, 2025

As the rest of Japan shrinks, Tokyo grows

Women and young people are leading a migratory wave that the government is struggling to halt.
The U.S. Department of Education in Washington on March 6
WORLD / Politics
Mar 12, 2025

U.S. Education Department to cut half its staff ahead of planned elimination

The department oversees $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil rights laws in schools and provides federal funding for needy districts.
High school student Soa Ono, 17, assists an elderly woman during a recreational activity at a nursing care facility in Nagoya in late February.
JAPAN / Society / Regional voices: Chubu
Apr 7, 2025

Caregiver apprenticeship for high school students expanding in Aichi

The program allows apprentices to earn an income while acquiring knowledge and skills through hands-on experience.

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it