Over the last 10 years, I've met a lot of foreigners wanting to get more out of their jobs in Japan, but who are being frustrated either by some old fashioned hard-core company system OR because they lack the skills to take the next step up. Usually you would think that such people are at the...

The poor working conditions of foreign trainees in Japan came to the public's attention back in August 2006, when a Chinese trainee at a pig farm in Chiba complained about the harsh work conditions and was told that his traineeship would be terminated. This of course meant that he would be banished back to...

While Okinawa, with its special culture and friendly people is a great place to visit, you have to remember that apart from the call centers, it is primarily a tourism and agriculture-fisheries based economy. This makes it tough to get a decent job, and as if the local unemployment rate of 7.6% (13.2% for youths) wasn’t enough, the prefecture also has...

The following is an unofficial history of how Okinawa has become a rising technology center in Japan. I will follow up next week with my impressions of the island and practical issues relating to either setting up there and finding people, or on the other side of the coin finding a job there. Back in the mid-1990's, Japan's economy was in...