General Interest

In casting an eye back over memorable science and environment stories from Japan in 2018, it is impossible to ignore the extreme weather that hit the country.

The government said Thursday it plans to regularly release data on the number of foreign nationals working in Japan under a new visa system from April, as part of its efforts to avoid having them concentrate in large cities.

Japan will take measures to help workers from abroad meet essential needs in their everyday lives ahead of an influx expected next year to address the nation's labor shortage.

Japan is the second-best place in the world in terms of human development, with Hong Kong in first place and Iceland in third, according to a new index called the Human Life Indicator that is supposed to be simpler and more accurate than the U.N. Human Development Index.

Japan's parliament passed a bill early Saturday morning that will create a new foreign worker program to help address labor shortages, opening the country's doors to blue-collar laborers in a major policy shift.

Employed Japanese women could surpass 30 million as early as this year, though a shortage of slots at day care centers poses a barrier to taking jobs for 30-somethings raising children.

People from Fukushima Prefecture living in Europe have started in earnest to campaign in Brussels to dispel concerns about foods from the northeastern prefecture following the 2011 nuclear crisis there.

Nearly 3,000 foreign workers dispatched to a Sharp Corp. plant in Mie Prefecture have apparently had their contracts terminated, according to a labor union.The massive reduction of contract workers on the back of a cut in display panel production comes at a time when the government is seeking to revise the immigration law and accept more foreign blue-collar workers into Japan amid opposition parties’ fierce protests.

The government will include the hotel industry in the scope of type two trainee status under its technical intern training program for foreigners, officials have said.The program has three statuses — type one for first-year trainees, type two for those in the second to third year and type three for those in the fourth to fifth year.