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...

While I mainly focus on jobs for knowledge workers, there are nevertheless many other types of jobs available for foreigners in Japan. Today I'd like to focus on a low-end position and ways to segue this into something better over time. Thanks to the current economic boom, there are now more jobs than people...