Tag - foreign-workers

 
Menu
Search
 
December 22, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

FOREIGN WORKERS

The three Cambodian women are seeking compensation for damages over alleged sexual abuse and unpaid overtime wages.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 17, 2024
Cambodian interns accuse farmer of sexual abuse and wage theft
One woman was raped nearly every day and endured conditions “akin to sexual slavery,” the three women's lawyer said in a statement.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi (second from left) speaks at a ministerial meeting on foreign workers at the Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2024
Japan begins process to replace controversial foreign trainee program
An expert panel has been appointed to assist the government in drafting a system to replace the controversial Technical Intern Training Program.
Filipino housekeepers undergo training to work for a Japanese staffing company. By applying the same criteria when hiring overseas and local workers, Japanese firms tend to underutilize the unique skills that foreign nationals can bring.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 8, 2024
Firms should quit turning foreign workers into Japanese ones
Many foreign nationals struggle with the idiosyncrasies of Japan's employment system. Firms tend to assimilate overseas personnel rather than utilize their unique skills.
Leaders of over 70 universities and research institutions from Japan and India attended a forum in New Delhi in mid-October.
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2024
Japan's public and private sectors seek workers from India
The number of technical trainees and what are known as specified skilled workers coming from India to Japan has been on the rise in recent years.
Justice Minister Ryuji Koizumi speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Friday. Koizumi stressed that the granting of the special residency permits to children subjected to deportation orders was a one-time measure.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 27, 2024
Japan fine-tunes issuance of humanitarian visas
The move comes amid a near-tripling of technical intern trainees from Myanmar going missing from their programs in 2023.
Out of a total of 509,373 foreign technical trainees, 1.9% went missing in 2023, according to Immigration Services Agency data.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 27, 2024
Record number of technical trainees go missing in Japan in 2023
Of the total, 1,765 were Myanmar nationals who had fled conflict in their home country.
The Justice Ministry said there are now over 250,000 specified skilled foreign workers.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2024
Number of specified skilled visa holders in Japan surpasses 250,000
The government is aiming to attract 820,000 foreign workers under the specified skilled worker program over a five-year period through April 2029.
Job-seekers take a Japanese class at an employment placement company in Hanoi in October 2022.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 11, 2024
Is Japan an attractive option for foreign talent from Asia?
The uptick in young foreign workers is driven by growing interest in Japanese society and culture and difficulty in finding jobs at home.
An electronic sign developed by Mitsubishi Electric displays announcements in multiple languages at a factory in Tokyo on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 10, 2024
Mitsubishi Electric develops multilingual translation system for meetings
The firm hopes the system will be used when information needs to be related accurately to a large number of workers, including non-Japanese ones.
Jonah Ndeuludila (right) is studying at Tochigi Prefecture's Asian Rural Institute in order to bring skills back to his job at Namibia's Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 2, 2024
Over half a century, seeds of change grow at a Tochigi farm
Founded by Toshihiro Takami in 1973, ARI promotes organic, subsistence farming methods and the practice of servant leadership.
Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
COMMUNITY / Issues / Longform
Aug 9, 2024
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
You've likely heard of the American dream. In Japan, where no such concept exists, immigrants forge their own ideals.
Ngun Nei Par, the general manager at Ginshotei Awashima in Numata, Gunma Prefecture, graduated from a university in Myanmar with a degree in geography.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 6, 2024
Japan needs foreign workers, but it might not want them to stay long
Japanese politicians remain reluctant to create pathways for foreign workers, especially those in low-skill jobs, to stay indefinitely.
Starting from September, foreign employees on a work visa must abide by a new points-based system to keep working in Singapore.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2024
Singapore is making life tougher for global talent
The city-state could lose its position as a global business hub if it keeps tightening the rules for overseas employees in a political bid to appease local residents.
The labor ministry plans to compile a report on foreign workers by the end of fiscal 2024 and use it to improve measures to secure and retain foreign human resources.
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2024
Japan to survey job changes by foreign care workers
The labor ministry aims to improve measures to secure and retain foreign human resources.
A Vietnamese worker harvests tomatoes at a farm in Asahi, Chiba Prefecture.
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2024
Japan faces shortage of almost a million foreign workers in 2040
At the current pace, 5.91 million foreign people will be working in Japan in 2040
Kansai International Airport in Izumisano, Osaka Prefecture, in December
JAPAN / Society
Jun 28, 2024
Deportations over immigration violations in Japan up 65% in 2023
Foreign nationals subject to deportation procedures nearly doubled to 18,198.
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.
Recently, Japan designated Hokkaido Prefecture (including its capital, Sapporo), Fukuoka, Tokyo and Osaka as special zones for financial and asset management businesses. Kumamoto Prefecture was also named a national strategic zone for semiconductors.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 14, 2024
International social infrastructure key to Japan’s high-tech future
Across the globe there is an ongoing search for talent, especially in high-tech sectors, and Japan is no different.
Migrant workers harvest and package vegetables in a greenhouse in Gasan-myeon, South Korea, in December 2023. Though a shrinking population makes imported labor vital, migrant workers routinely face predatory employers, inhumane conditions and other abuse.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jun 11, 2024
South Korea accused of 'human trafficking' with seasonal worker program
Filipino workers say brokers charge excessive fees to find them back-breaking work, confiscate their passports and documents, and cheat them out of wages.
Hyappu Ishikawa (left) attends to children at the "Karafuru" Japanese language school in Nishio, Aichi Prefecture, in April.
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2024
How one Japanese city supports foreign students through community education
In the city of Nishio, public and private sectors collaborate with schools to support foreign students in Japanese language education and raise their school enrollment rates.
Nippon Steel alleges undue White House influence on doomed deal review
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Dec. 10.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Mother hopes for reunion with daughter ensnared by Tokyo host clubs
The Kabukicho district in Tokyo, where the daughter of a woman in her 60s fell deeply into the host club culture.
Casual workouts, cool living, ‘complete’ food: Japan’s health trends of 2024
In 2024, efficiency trumped effort among Japan's fitness-focused aspirants.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.
Curiosity didn’t kill the meme: Why cats still rule Japanese YouTube
A screen shot from YouTube user @lagelda shows the simplicity of going viral in Japan in 2024: A cat dancing to EDM in front of a green screen.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER