One of the most frustrating parts of living in Japan, especially if you work in a Japanese office, is the fact that 125 million people take their vacations all at the same time. And short ones at that. If you are a foreigner, you may get away with asking for a long vacation at an [...]

Job offers for graduating job seekers as of October 1 were down to 62.5%, which is almost level with the lowest marks of 60.2% and 61.3% from 2003 and 2004 respectively, which were the lowest marks of the last decade and a half. But the rate of decline from a year earlier (7.4%) is greater [...]

Major restaurants always covet Michelin stars, one of the food industry’s premiere signs of success. The latest edition of the Michelin Guide shows that Tokyo restaurants now have a total of 261 stars for 197 different restaurants. Eleven of these restaurants have three stars, and the Tokyo total is triple that of nearest competitor Paris, making the [...]

Japanese electronics company JVC Kenwood Holdings are in talks with software giant Konami to sell their music division, Victor Entertainment. Negotiations are under way for the sale of a majority share to Konami, after JVC had apparently also felt out market leader Universal Music. The deal, [...]

A Kyodo news report yesterday proclaimed that 1 in 7 Japanese people were living in poverty, according to a Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare release. This was the first time that the ministry has released such figures, which were calculated in accordance with the calculation methods used [...]

When workers get their year-end bonuses this year, they are likely to find them a liittle lighter than usual. For the first time in 7 years, companies listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange will cut bonus payments by 13.1%, the steepest such cut since records began in 1970.

Year end bonuses will [...]

I’ve been meaning to do a post about Financial and Postal Affairs Minister Kamei Shizuka ever since the election, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it until now. Kamei, and the leader of the DPJ’s other coalition partner, Fukushima Mizuho, pose something of a problem for the Hatoyama administration. He needed to find [...]

Although the government has made several attempts over the last decade or so to change conditions for temporary (or ‘dispatched’) workers, a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry study has found that about 41% of non-regular workers are doing work on a par with that of regular employees, although only 16% [...]

Australia’s booming resource sector continues to power ahead, with news that several massive LNG fields will be developed, including a gas field known as Gorgon which will begin construction within weeks. Australia exports much of its resources to Asia, with Japan accounting for 20% of the country’s A$200 billion or [...]

Honda are developing a new ‘personal mobility device’, which looks like a unicycle, yet maintains stability internally and moves by leaning your weight in the direction you wish to go – similar to the Segway.

Honda says that the device is still in development, and there are not yet any firm plans for when it will [...]