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economy

Japanese government to limit foreign students’ coronavirus financial aid to top 30 academic percent

Those who haven’t been hitting the books hard might need to severely pinch their pennies.

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Tokyo taxi firm “mercy fires” entire workforce, says drivers better off collecting unemployment

Promises to hire all approximately 600 people back after situation improves.

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Japanese hospital worker tweets about receiving temporary 100,000 yen bonus for economic reasons

This bonus comes with a special set of conditions: you must prove you used up the entire amount by April 30, or it’s null and void.

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Over 50 percent of single Japanese women in their 20s struggle to make ends meet, survey says

Young women in Japan are experiencing serious financial trouble. 

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Survey finds only six percent of Japanese workers motivated, seventh lowest in the world

Read all about this troubling social trend…or don’t. What do I care?

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Supermarket throws away bench because of sales tax hike, angers many

Netizens agree it sucks, but don’t agree on who’s to blame.

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Japan outlines new strategy to boost economy, aims to create lucrative “unicorn companies”

Welcome to the sequel of Abenomics.

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“HOW much?!” Professor estimates appropriate salary for housewives, housewife actresses gasp

In a special press event, a Tokyo professor puts a price to the blood, sweat, and tears of Japanese wives and mothers.

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Japanese advertising agency breaks tradition by recruiting people who got held back in school

When a company ensures that everyone deserves a second chance, it’s a company worth working for.

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“The one and only way to make people in Japan take more vacation time”

Our veteran salaryman-turned-reporter gives his idea for the one thing that has to change before Japan will stop working itself to death.

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Are anime and idol songs the musical choice of poor people? Income survey has some otaku worried

Anime has plenty of rousing anthems, but some are calling this data downright depressing.

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This is a pretty worrying chart for China’s demographic future

It’s no secret that many countries face looming demographics problems as their populations age.

Much has been written about developed markets like Japan, Germany, and Italy, which have the largest percentages of their populations age 65 and up.

But another country also deserves attention: China.

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Here’s why Japan won’t do anything about the crazy yen surge

The Japanese yen is on fire.

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New anime studio employee gets his first paycheck…and is shocked at how small it is

There’s a reason why the same parents who encourage their kids to become doctors or lawyers don’t try to steer them into becoming anime studio employees.

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China could give 100 million people new identities in a bid to save its economy

Chinese officials are set to discuss ways to stimulate the country’s sputtering housing market during its Central Economic WorkingConference later this month, according to Chinese state media.

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“What would happen if all Japanese people could speak English?” Net users duke it out

Who doesn’t love debating hypothetical scenarios about the future of a country, especially in the anonymity of the internet?

In fact, a recent Japanese Twitter exchange has led to such an economic debate. One Twitter user with a large following sparked the initial discussion by posing the question “What would happen if everyone in Japan learned how to speak English?” That post has now been retweeted thousands of times, with hundreds of people eager to share their own opinions on the topic.

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Want to be an animator in Japan? Brace yourself for long hours, poverty as you start your career

To many anime fans, working in the industry itself seems like a dream job. The chance to spend all day immersed in the medium they love, helping to add to the collective body of work from which they’ve drawn so much enthusiasm and enjoyment obviously holds more appeal than some bland corporate or service sector profession. Being a professional animator also means you get paid for your passion, to the tune of roughly a cool million a year!

Except, that’s yen we’re talking about, which means the average animator’s annual salary is well under US$10,000.

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Six Japanese business terms you already know, even if you didn’t realize it

We’ve talked before about handy Japanese words and phrases we wish we could toss around in English. This kind of linguistic jealousy doesn’t flow in just one direction, though. Japanese businesspeople regularly make use of a number of English phrases, either because they’re more concise, precise, or just sound cooler to their ears than their Japanese counterparts.

Sometimes, though, knowing English isn’t enough to understand these loanwords, since their pronunciations can get pretty garbled in the transition from English to Japanese speakers. Feeling confident in your ability to translate English translated into Japanese back into English? Read on and see how many you can decipher.

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Would you date a girl dressed head to toe in Uniqlo? 76% of men say “of course!”

Uniqlo, the hugely popular Japanese chain store that stocks a variety of simple, practical and affordable clothing, has expanded into a world-wide venture, with stores in Singapore, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Russia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and, well, you get the picture. In the West in particular, Uniqlo has a pretty cool image thanks to its simple, pared-down designs and celebrity approval (for example, Pharrell Williams designed a range for them in April 2014), so it might surprise some of you to hear that there are people in Japan who tend to be a bit snobby about Uniqlo, looking down on its regular clientele for lacking in fashion sense.

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In wake of meat scandal, McDonald’s Japan losing not only customers, but employees, too

It’s been a pretty rough year for McDonald’s in Japan, in the same way that getting hit by a bus on your way to work would make for a rough morning. Following a widely reported scandal in which the chain had been supplied with expired chicken by a meat processing facility in China, McDonald’s has been trying everything it can think of to lure diners back, such as giving away Chicken McNuggets for free, replacing the meat with tofu, and trying to take our mind off the incident entirely by pulling our attention towards pork cutlets instead.

After all, a restaurant chain can’t survive without customers, right? There’s one other thing you need to run a business though: employees, and these days McDonald’s is finding itself losing those, too.

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