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Recruiter held over dispatch of trainee
Police on Wednesday arrested the representative director of an Okayama-based recruitment cooperative on suspicion of illegally dispatching an Indonesian trainee to an unauthorized local factory. The Okayama and Hiroshima prefectural police jointly began investigating Keisuke Tsuruno, 60, the representative director of Sanyo Intec, earlier in the day on suspicion of violating the Immigration Control and…
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Osaka Labor Bureau probes Yamada Denki
The Maebashi-based firm, one of the nation’s largest consumer electronics retailers, is suspected of ordering the salespeople to confirm and promise to follow 35 instructions on a checklist at the Labi 1 Namba outlet in Naniwa Ward, Osaka. The labor bureau will clarify the circumstances surrounding the dispatched salespeople. The outlet has not revealed how…
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Government to propose legal ban on age limits in recruitment
The ruling coalition parties agreed Wednesday to call for a legal ban on age limits when companies recruit workers, member lawmakers said. The proposed ban is aimed at helping young people and retired workers find jobs, they said. The elimination of age restrictions in recruitment is currently a nonbinding target for companies under the existing…
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Election puts overtime-pay exclusion on hold
Wary of an upcoming election, the ruling bloc is backing off on a highly contentious bill that would exclude certain white-collar workers from overtime pay. But debate over the issue, which unions fiercely oppose, will resurface because the government’s retreat is widely believed a mere postponement until after the July Upper House election. Certain white-collar…
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Japan Mulls Importing Foreign Workers
The prospect of a shrinking, rapidly aging population is spurring a debate about whether Japan is so insular that it once barred foreigners from its shores for two centuries should open up to more foreign workers. Japan’s 2 million registered foreigners, 1.57 percent of the population, are at a record high but minuscule compared with…
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Mixed results with foreign influx: Japan is changing, but system, attitudes need to keep pace
The birthrate in Japan is at an all-time low, far below the rate needed to maintain the population. The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research has predicted that Japan could lose 20 million people by 2050. If that isn’t bad enough, Japan also has one of the most rapidly graying populations in the…
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Detention centers lack docs / 2 facilities holding visa violators not offering proper medical care
Two state-run immigration centers where foreigners who have violated the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law are detained until they are deported failed to have a full-time doctor on staff despite ministerial requirements, it has been learned. As adequate medical treatment and health care for the detainees is stipulated in a Justice Ministry ordinance, a…
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Japan salvages its older workers
Fears of a labour crunch and a deficit of skilled workers are growing in Japan as baby boomers start hitting the standard retirement age of 60 this year, in what Japanese media have dubbed the “2007 problem”. A decline in numbers of young workers is exacerbating the concern as the population ages at an unprecedented…
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Foreign permanent residents on rise, filling gaps
Japan’s population started declining in 2005, but in contrast, registered foreigners soared to a record high 2.01 million, a leap from 1.36 million a decade ago and accounting for 1.57 percent of the nation’s total population. As baby boomers born between 1947 to 1949 start to retire this year, getting more foreign nationals into the…
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Entertainer visa issuance down over 70% in 2 years
The number of visas for entertainers issued by Japan is estimated to have fallen by more than 70% from a peak of 140,000 in 2004 to 40,000 this year on tougher visa requirements, according to data made available by the Foreign Ministry on Thursday. The government issues such visas to singers, dancers and other foreign…