Old News2 (Jan,2010-Dec,2010 )
02-December-2010 Job Market Bleak for Japanese Grads; Brighter for Asian Peers If you're a fresh college graduate in Japan, your chances of securing a job are pretty dismal. The lack of employment options for young Japanese graduates has reached the proportions worthy of a national crisis: according to a government survey released earlier this month, only 57.6% of university students due to graduate next spring had secured employment as of Oct. 1, an all-time record low. The tough times for students underlines the fact that Japanese companies are still cautious about hiring full-time staff amid uncertainty over the nation’s economy. At the same time, college students are picky about where they work ? securing employment at a big brand name is very important for most Japanese grads, which makes the supply and demand situation even worse. But there’s one area where demand and supply seems to be matching up: Asian students who want to work for Japanese firms and Japanese companies who hope to hire foreign students. As Japanese companies push to globalize their operations, they’re keen to hire more foreign students who speak languages other than Japanese. |
02-August-2010 Bernanke Says U.S. Consumer Spending to Accelerate Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said rising wages will probably spur household spending in the next few quarters, even as weak job gains drag down consumer confidence. |
09-July-2010 Recent Amendments of Japanese labor laws Labor standard Act in Japan was recently amended for the purpuse of maintaining workers' health and achieving work-life balance by seeking to limit long working hours. The amendment was started in force on April 1st in 2010. A. increase in the working overtime rate Under the amendment, if an employee works overtime and the amount of overtime exceeds 60 hours in one calender month, then with respect to excess, the employer must pay extra overtime compensation that exceeds, by at least 50%, the regular, non-overtime wage. In pther words, the employer must pay at least 150% of the regular wage for the overtime worked in excess of 60 hours per month. (The extra pay rate was 25% regardless of the number of overtime hours worked before April 2010) Certain "small and medium-sized companies" will be exempt under the amendment from paying the increased overtime compensation rate at least for the time being. WIth respect to the increased overtime rate required by the amendment(i.e., 25% of the regular non-overtime wage, which is the difference caused by the increase from 25% to 50%), the employer is allowed to give substitute holidays (daikyuu), which means giving employees days of leave at the regular wage rate instead of paying extra wages, provided that an employer first enters into a labor-management agreement with the employees to that effect. The amendment will not affect the statutory weekly holiday work extra pay ratio (35%) and late-night work extra pay ratio (25%). B. Employer's obligation to make efforts to increase overtime work Currently, an employer must enter into a labor-management agreement to have its employees to work overtime. Further, the employer must provide for special provisions in that agreement in order to require its employees to work overtime in excess of 45 hours per month. Under the amendment, if an employer enters into a labor-management agreement with the aforementioned special provisions, that employer will be obliged to stipulate an overtime compensation rate applicable to overtime work in excess of 45 hours per month. In that case, an employer is also required to make efforts to set the overtime compensation rate higher than 25% and to reduce the overtime hours exceeding 45 hours per month as much as possible. C. Taking annual paid leave by the hour Currently, an employee is supposed to take annual paid leave by the day. Under the amendment, however, an employee may take it by the hour, up to 5 days, if a labor-management agreement to that effect is entered into at the workplace. An employee may choose at his or her discretion whether he or she will take annual leave by the day or by the hour. These below started in force on June 30 in 2010. -provide child care leave until the child becomes 1 year and 2 months old -establish a short working hour system for those workers whose child has not reached 3 years old. -refrain from having overtime work done by those workers whose child has not reached 3 years old. -10 days of child nursing leave when workers have 2 or more children but 5 days if workers have a single child. -10 days of family nursing leave when workers have 2 or more families to take care of but 5 days if workers have a single family to take care of. |
03-February-2010 January U.S. Private-Sector Jobs Fell by 22,000, ADP Says The labor market showed positive signs of recovering in January. Private-sector jobs in the U.S. fell by 22,000 in January, the smallest drop since February 2008, and service jobs continued to rise, according to a national employment report published Wednesday by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing Inc. and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers. |
31-January-2010 Payrolls Probably Rose at Start of Year: U.S. Economy Preview The U.S. may have gained jobs in January for the second time in three months as the world’s largest economy began 2010 on firmer footing, economists said before reports this week. Payrolls probably rose by 13,000 workers this month, according to the median forecast of 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before the Labor Department’s Feb. 5 report. The unemployment rate may have held at 10 percent for the third consecutive month. |
29-January-2010 Japan jobless rate falls to 5.1 pct, job availability up Japan's jobless rate edged down in December and the availability of jobs improved for the fourth month in a row. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent from 5.2 percent in November, government figures showed on Friday. That was better than median market forecast of 5.3 percent. The jobless rate hit a record high of 5.7 percent in July. [JPUNR=ECI] The jobs-to-applicants ratio improved slightly for the fourth consecutive month, rising to 0.46 from 0.45 in November. [JPJOBA=ECI] |
26-January-2010 UN: 27 Million People Became Unemployed In 2009 Twenty-seven million people around the world lost their jobs in 2009, the U.N. labor agency said Wednesday, warning of a jobless recovery in a report released on the opening day of the World Economic Forum. |
25-January-2010 Companies in U.S. Plan to Hire, Spend This Year, Survey Shows More companies in the U.S. plan to increase payrolls and invest in new equipment this year as demand strengthens and credit availability improves, a quarterly survey of economists showed. |