Japan

[ad_1] A growing number of Japanese companies are moving to rehire former employees who have quit before retirement age — a move aimed at securing work-ready personnel amid serious labor shortages crippling the country.Previously, it had been widely believed that quitting a job means completely severing the relationship with the employer. But that way of thinking has been diminishing in recent years, offering a second chance to former workers.Sachiko Kido, […]

[ad_1] As midnight approaches on New Year's Eve, many across Japan line up for their turn to strike large, heavy bells at temples — altogether, they're struck 108 times to represent the number of one's desires and temptations — to ring out the year.In recent years, however, temples have scheduled bell-ringing events for different times of the day or stopped the tradition altogether amid noise complaints from nearby residents.Amid such […]

[ad_1] Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is considering forgoing a plan to visit Brazil and other Latin American nations in January amid a political fundraising scandal involving his party's biggest faction, a government source said Sunday. The move comes as Kishida, who doubles as the head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, needs to pull together his political foothold following allegations that the faction created hundreds of millions of yen in […]