Japan's barriers to foreign labor are showing signs of cracking as preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics threaten to exacerbate the worst shortage of construction workers in almost 20 years. Curbs on visas for foreign blue-collar workers may be loosened, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga ...
Radiation spreading from the Fukushima No. 1 plant threatens to derail Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to revive nuclear power and deliver the lower energy prices needed to power his economic reforms. As Abe prepares for a trip Saturday to the Middle East, where he ...
Lawmakers are reluctant to reopen legislation on the sales tax rise, raising the bar for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should he seek a shallower path of increases, according to one of his advisers. "They don't want to touch on this issue," Etsuro Honda, 58, a ...
Fumio Kageyama was 67 when he first turned to crime, making an unsuccessful attempt to rob a drunken passenger on a train in March 2008. Given a suspended prison sentence, Kageyama was caught two months later stealing a bowl of rice and pork from a ...
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promises that his growth policies will revive the nation's industrial might. For Takumi Tanaka at auto parts maker Uchida Co., times are worse than after the 2011 quake-tsunami catastrophe. Tanaka, managing director of the company, which was founded in 1955 and ...
The Bank of Japan has failed to end more than a decade of deflation by being too cautious, according to Takatoshi Ito, a former Finance Ministry official who is a contender to become the central bank's next governor. The BOJ Policy Board under Gov. Masaaki ...
Consumers are closing their wallets as the economy's outlook darkens, making it harder for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to stave off the nation's third recession in four years. Households are holding the most cash since 2005, shunning risk as they grow gloomier, Bank of Japan ...
Japan Inc. has found a new export market: Japan. For the first time, companies are building products abroad and shipping them back home as the strong yen, aging workforce and improved skills overseas erode the century-old mantra that what's sold in Japan should be made ...
