Search - jobs

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
May 7, 2006

Not such a wild conservation idea?

It is late afternoon, and over sundowner drinks in the hunting lodge the talk around the table is of lions. Or, to be more specific, one particular lion -- "Old Black Mane," the night raider, cattle killer, and terror of the local tribesmen. Man eater!
JAPAN
May 2, 2006

Female, elderly entrepreneurs on the rise as society grays

The number of women and elderly people preparing to start new businesses has been rising amid the aging of the population and consequent decrease in the number of small and midsize companies as their owners retire, a recent government report says.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2006

France on the mark with hiring subsidies

NEW YORK -- Was France's recent wave of protests against an amendment that would have increased employers' freedom to fire young workers a blessing in disguise? To defuse the protests, President Jacques Chirac was forced to withdraw the provision, and instead has proposed hiring subsidies as a way to...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Apr 30, 2006

Recalling lady umpire Perry Barber and Cooperstown cookies

Reader Dennis McCormick from Hyogo Prefecture recently wrote to ask, "Do you remember about 15 years ago an American woman umpire came to Japan and worked a few Japanese games in the Kansai area? I don't recall her name, but I was surprised when I found out she was not a regular umpire in one of the...
COMMENTARY
Apr 27, 2006

Has Japan changed for better?

LONDON -- Some people complain that Japanese society has deteriorated with the ending of the lifetime employment system and the replacement of seniority-based promotion systems with ones based on performance.
JAPAN
Apr 26, 2006

Dad urges harshest sentence for Obara

Timothy Blackman asked the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday to give the maximum penalty to Joji Obara, who is standing trial for the rape and fatal drugging of his daughter, Lucie, as well as another death and the rapes of eight other women.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Apr 25, 2006

Toshie Kobayashi

Toshie Kobayashi, 76, has been working six days a week, since she was 14 years old. As a highly skilled typesetter, she made a good living until the 1980s, when digital systems replaced her and analog typesetting machines. At 54, she registered with a cleaning service, and ever since then she has been...
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2006

Kimura execs to be arrested this week

Police have decided to arrest Moriyoshi Kimura, president of Kimura Construction Co., and former company executives early this week on suspicion of submitting falsified financial statements to the infrastructure ministry, sources said.
EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 2006

France refuses to face economic facts

It is hard to find a silver lining in the clouds that hover over France's economic future. Months of sustained political protest by French students forced a humiliating defeat on the Paris government, obliging it to withdraw a package of labor reforms that would have made it easier to fire first-time...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2006

Myths and misconceptions on Chernobyl

LONDON -- The 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident of April 26, 1986, is prompting a new wave of alarmist claims about its impact on human health and the environment. As has become a ritual on such commemorative occasions, the death toll is tallied in the hundreds of thousands, and fresh...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 16, 2006

Unlike with the French, a lack of fight spells future gloom for Japan's workers

While traveling through Europe recently I tried to get a handle on the controversy surrounding France's now abandoned First Job Contract (CPE) law, which was meant to make it easier for companies to hire young people. However, those same young people thought the law would make it easier for companies...
BUSINESS
Apr 14, 2006

Job-hunting students favor ANA

All Nippon Airways Co. has become the most popular company for job-seeking university students for the second consecutive year, job magazine publisher Recruit Co. said Thursday.
Japan Times
Features
Apr 9, 2006

Off the road from Damascus

Megumi Yoshitake's experience of living with the Bedouin is quite probably unique. Although her primary medium is photography, here she also offers some written snippets of memory and expression from her numerous sojourns in the Syrian Desert since the 1980s.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 9, 2006

Bringing the lady-makes-tea debate to the boil

In the early 1990s I interviewed a representative of the vending machine industry who told me that one of the most revolutionary developments in his business was the installation of coffee and tea dispensers in new office buildings. "Think of it," he said excitedly, "women office workers will no longer...
BUSINESS
Apr 7, 2006

Boom-bust gauge stayed over 50% in February

A key gauge of the current state of the economy stood above the boom-or-bust threshold of 50 percent in February for the seventh-straight month, spurred mainly by improvement in employment conditions, the government said Thursday.
SPORTS / E-LIST
Apr 5, 2006

No ducking WBC's highs and lows

Welcome to the E-List, home of integrity and baseball, although the two are one in the E-List's mind. And the List does have a mind of its own, which brings me to the next point.
BUSINESS
Apr 4, 2006

850,000 new grads enter workforce

An estimated 850,000 new graduates from colleges and high schools joined the workforce Monday, up several hundred thousand from last year as many companies hired more young people on the back of the economic recovery and ahead of the upcoming mass retirement of postwar baby boomers.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 4, 2006

Students bring school to book

It was payday, and Shawn Hannold's bank account was empty. A phone call from a coworker alerted Hannold the paychecks hadn't shown up in the accounts that morning.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 4, 2006

Gonna make you sweat

The Japanese love bath-time, whether it be in a hot spring (onsen), a public bathhouse (sento), or a soak in the tub at home (o-furo). Bathing in Japan really is something of an art that verges on an obsession. Of course, the Japanese didn't invent it (the ancient Romans take credit for that), but they...
Japan Times
Features
Apr 2, 2006

Taking tanka to a new and timeless plane

Machi Tawara made a spectacular debut as a tanka poet at the age of 25 in 1987, and since then the Osaka-born artist has devoted her life to condensing her world into those neat, rhythmic but not rhyming, 31-syllable compositions.
BUSINESS
Mar 29, 2006

New recruits seek trust, poll shows

For new employees who will start working this spring, trust is the most important thing they look for in a company, an Internet survey found Tuesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2006

Besieged DPJ unable to rise to debate

With the Monday approval of the fiscal 2006 budget by the Diet, lawmakers have turned their focus to bills up for deliberation during the remainder of the session, but the opposition camp's state of disarray may prevent serious debate on the role of government in society, critics say.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2006

Building a better safety net for workers

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- A lot of public attention and worry nowadays surrounds the new risks that globalization and information technology create for our wages and livelihoods. But there has been far less constructive discussion of new ideas about how to confront these risks. In fact, we might be losing...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 25, 2006

Birmingham players face scathing attack after blowout loss

LONDON -- A few years ago a Premiership player inquired how much he would be fined if he missed training. He was told it would cost him £5,000, which seemed like a good deal.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2006

New rules to doom used electrical goods shops?

The phones at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry have been ringing off the hook since early February when it suddenly and quietly changed its enforcement of a 2001 law on electrical appliance safety.
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2006

Shifting fortunes of 'shunto'

Since 2002, major Japanese labor unions have refrained from demanding wage increases during their annual spring labor offensive (shunto). Instead, they have concentrated on securing union members' jobs amid a persistently stagnant economy. But after a long "winter," a ray of hope appears to have emerged...
BUSINESS
Mar 24, 2006

METI calls for exchanges, investment to raise growth

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry proposed Thursday that Japan boost its personnel exchanges and financial cooperation with other Asian economies to strengthen the country's global competitiveness.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami