"While Japan has entered an era of population decline, its total population has been flat because of an increase in foreign nationals," a ministry official said.
While more than 1,300 candidate nurses and caregivers have traveled to Japan from the two countries, only 19 have passed Japan's qualification examination for nurses, due largely to language difficulties.
From Buenos Aires to Toronto, Kuala Lumpur to London, hundreds of thousands of people rallied on Saturday in a global day of action against corporate greed and budget cutbacks, demanding better living conditions and a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources.
The Occupy Wall Street protests spreading across the United States landed in Tokyo on Saturday, as hundreds of people [including members of Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union] gathered to protest against corporate greed and social inequality.
On Friday, September 30th 20011, Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union and its Tozen ALTs Branch declared the existence of its Borderlink Shop to management and submitted a slate of 34 collective bargaining demands.
Japan's foreign language education market is growing, with learners more than willing to fork out plenty of money on lessons, DVDs or e-learning. Gaba says that on average, a student spends about 50,000 yen ($654) a month [on English conversation lessons] -- against an average 36,500 yen allowance for Japanese businesspeople.
NHK found that a substantial portion of the recipients are able-bodied males between the ages of 20 and 60. The number of unemployed in Japan hovers just under the 5 million mark, and as one case worker explained, most of the new additions to the welfare rolls are men who were employed as haken (contract workers), non-regular employees who could be laid off easily.
Seventy-four percent of fixed-contract workers such as part-time and temporary employees earned less than 2 million yen a year, according to a recent survey, up 16.7 percentage points from the last survey in 2009, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Sept. 14.
Japan's expenditure on education as a percentage of gross domestic product in 2008 remained the lowest among 31 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development...[and] pointed out that "other factors that influence the quality of education need to be taken into account," such as improving teachers' salaries and working conditions in Japan.
Radiation leaks, contaminated crops and water, plutonium released into the air and ocean, have made expats in Japan question whether to stay or head back home, especially in the face of pressure from family and loved ones.