Slow response due to small government and lack of digitalization has seen some companies go out of business.

Factor in those on partially paid leave and the 2.6 percent rate hits 11.5 percent. Then there's the 940,000 who left the labor force in April but weren't counted.

Prime Minister Abe’s team is working on steps to save jobs and spark a v-shaped recovery, but is money all it takes?

Japan's ski resorts are suffering through one of the worst snow seasons on record, disappointing locals and foreign tourists, and jeopardizing the country's budding reputation as an international ski destination. In Hokkaido to the north, where resorts like Niseko are known for reliable, fresh powder, ...

Japan looks set to re-embrace the power of public spending with one of its biggest ever stimulus packages. Slowing global growth, a higher sales tax and a string of natural disasters are giving policymakers in Tokyo plenty of reasons to lead a worldwide shift toward ...

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should postpone the consumption tax increase scheduled for October or face the failure of Abenomics, his six-year economic revival program, according to one of the architects of that program. "Abenomics will fail for real if the tax is raised now," Etsuro ...

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should again abandon his oft-delayed plan to hike the consumption tax this year because it risks pushing Japan's economy into recession and hampering efforts to generate stable inflation, according to former economy minister Heizo Takenaka. "Of course a sales tax hike ...

The country that brought robots to car factories looks set to stay resolutely old-school in agriculture as it seeks to attract more foreign workers to replenish an aging workforce. This month's vote by the Diet to open the door more widely to overseas laborers confirms ...

The country's male-dominated businesses are starting to ditch long-held views about what kinds of products women want as female consumers flex their growing spending muscle. While the result — more goods that emphasize the practical rather than the pretty — is the way it's long ...