Tag - jobs

 
 

JOBS

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.
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2024
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The poll found that people worry most about their own health, plans for life after retirement, and the outlook for future income and assets.
Nomura Holdings and other major brokerages in Japan are raising compensation and benefits for senior employees age 60 or over.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 19, 2024
At Japan's brokerages, skills shortage improves conditions for older staff
Employees age 60 and above are increasingly getting paid for performance and given heavier responsibilities in line with their experience.
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.
Japan's labor productivity ranked last place among the Group of Seven major economies in 2023.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2024
Japan's labor productivity rises to 29th among OECD countries
Japan's per-hour productivity in 2023 came to $56.8, or ¥5,379 based on purchasing power parity, up two notches from the all-time low logged the year before.
Lekh Juneja, chairman and CEO of Kameda Seika, at the company's headquarters in the city of Niigata in August
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 15, 2024
Indian-born CEO of Japanese company says nation needs immigration to thrive
Japan has very few foreign-born CEOs, and boardrooms are overwhelmingly male.
Tour guides wait to collect tour groups from Hong Kong outside the Shenzhen Bay border crossing in Shenzhen, China
BUSINESS
Dec 14, 2024
Educated young Chinese turn to tour guiding as job market wavers
Tour guiding is becoming an increasingly popular fallback option in a China rife with employment instability as the economy slows.
"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.”
Commuters in Tokyo in March 2023.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 13, 2024
Ruling bloc proposes ¥1.23 million minimum threshold for taxable income
Tax chiefs from the LDP, Komeito and DPP plan to meet again as early as Tuesday after the DPP, which seeks to raise the threshold to ¥1.78 million, opposed the proposal.
Nvidia will end the year with about 4,000 people in China, up from just about 3,000 at the start of 2024, people familiar with its operations said.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 12, 2024
Nvidia steps up hiring in China to focus on AI-driven cars
The tech giant will end 2024 with about 4,000 employees in China, after starting the year with around 3,000.
Akihiro Kaneko, president of the Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Unions, speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Dec. 3.
BUSINESS
Dec 11, 2024
Japan union head calls for government to work more on raising pay
The call comes as Japan prepares for annual wage negotiations that culminate in the spring.
The bill to revise the law on remunerations for government workers calls for setting annual bonuses at an equivalent of 4.6 months' salary.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2024
Government workers' winter bonuses fall with hike bill pending
Prime Minister Ishiba's total winter bonuses were lower than usual due to his recent appointment and a voluntary return on his part of 30% to fiscal reforms.
The government's pension reform plan under consideration will make it easier for part-timers to join the kosei nenkin employee pension program.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 8, 2024
Japan to scrap ¥1.06 million employee pension threshold in 2026
The government also plans to abolish a requirement that companies must have at least 51 employees for employees to join the kosei nenkin 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.
Employees at large Tokyo companies who travel to the office daily to work fell to 47.4% in 2024 from 53.1% in the previous year, a survey shows.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 8, 2024
Hybrid work on the rise for Tokyo’s office employees: NRI Survey
For the July 2024 Nomura Research Institute survey, the firm polled 3,091 people from ages 20-69 who work for large companies in Tokyo.
Shoppers wait at the checkout lines at an Ito-Yokado shopping centre after a sales tax hike in Tokyo April 1, 2014. Big firms expect to increase capital spending only modestly, the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) tankan quarterly survey showed on Tuesday, reflecting uncertainty over how much a sales tax hike that kicked off on Tuesday could hurt a fragile economic recovery.   REUTERS/Toru Hanai (JAPAN - Tags: BUSINESS)
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 6, 2024
Ito-Yokado to reduce headcount of permanent employees by 1,000
The Seven & I Holdings unit will implement the reduction through personnel relocations and natural reductions, mainly through mandatory retirement.
Japan's base salaries grew at a 32-year-high pace in October, offering statistical support for the prospects of a central bank rate hike this month.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 6, 2024
Record base pay gains keep door open for BOJ hike
Base pay for full-time workers increased by 2.8% in October from a year ago, the biggest gain for comparable data back to 1994.
Members of the workers' union UA Zensen watch a video, during a kick-off rally for the annual "shunto" wage negotiations, in Tokyo in March 2023.
BUSINESS
Dec 5, 2024
UA Zensen unveils plan to demand 6% pay hike in 2025 Shunto
UA Zensen plans to seek a 7% wage increase for part-time workers, who make up about 60% of the roughly 1.9 million workers in its member unions.
Major electronics firms plan to pay new graduate hires starting salaries that vary depending on skills and experiences.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 5, 2024
Japanese electronics firms rethink uniform starting salaries
Panasonic Connect plans to pay an additional 10% to 20% on top of this year's starting salaries to spring 2025 recruits with past startup experiences or tech skills.
Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike says she will continue to review work styles flexibly to ensure that women do not have to sacrifice their careers due to life events.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 4, 2024
Tokyo government to introduce four-day workweek to empower women
The capital is joining a growing number of local governments introducing similar measures to improve working conditions amid a labor shortage.
An official from the Japan Council of Metalworkers' Unions writes on a board the results of this year's shuntō annual spring labor negotiations in March in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 3, 2024
JCM to demand pay-scale hike of ¥12,000 or more in 2025
The organization is aiming to ensure wage increases exceed the rate of inflation.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.