Foreign Workers in Japan Earn Less on Average than Citizens

Kiu Sugano from Nikkei:

Foreign nationals in Japan earn less than their Japanese counterparts even after controlling for such factors as education and experience, according to a recent government report covering an area at the center of intense policy debate.

The Cabinet Office's economic white paper for fiscal 2024 includes for the first time a section focusing specifically on Japan's more than 2 million foreign workers, finding that they earn 28% less than Japanese nationals.

This owes in large part to demographic differences, with many Japanese workers being in their 40s to 50s while their foreign counterparts skew younger, often in their 20s, and have less experience. But even after adjusting for age, education, and other characteristics of individual workers or workplaces, the paper still found a 7% gap that cannot otherwise be explained.

Mexican Mistakingly Invades Senkaku Islands

From The Yomiuri Shimbun:

A Mexican man was found to have landed on one of the Senkaku Islands in Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, on Friday, after apparently drifting in a canoe, the Japan Coast Guard said.

The man was picked up by a helicopter and taken to a hospital in the prefecture. He was quoted as saying that he had been drifted after leaving Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost island, by canoe.

A new challenger enters the ring...

National Diet Library Video Game Archive Only Used 16 Times in Past Years

From The Yomiuri Shimbun:

The National Diet Library Law requires publishers and others to deposit publications to the library when they are released. When the law was revised in 2000, commercially available video games were included in the deposit system.

The library in June 2022 started a program to allow visitors to play some of the games, about 3,300 title, in its collection on a trial basis. However, due partly to a lack of advertisement, there have been only 16 instances of a video game being played in the about two years until Jul7 27. The program limits the use of video games to research and study, and the library checks how the user plans to publicize the results of the play session.

After reading the headline, I reflexively started to buy a ticket to Tokyo to take up the Diet Library's offer of an afternoon of GTA: Vice City. However, my hopes were dashed when the use for the archive was research. Shame.

Tokyo Launches AI-Powered Fire and Disaster Management System

From Kyodo:

The Tokyo metropolitan government has launched an artificial intelligence system that uses high-altitude cameras to detect fires and building collapses in real-time to accelerate its initial disaster response during major earthquakes.

The AI-driven system analyzes footage from high-resolution cameras, with two installed at the Tokyo metropolitan government building and one each at a bridge near Tokyo Bay and a location in the western part of the metropolitan area, the local authorities and system developer Hitachi Ltd. said.

LDP Must Change in Order to Maintain Stranglehold of Japanese Politics

From The Yomiuri Shimbun:

When Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced he would not run in the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election slated for September, he insisted that the ruling party must demonstrate change.

“In this election, we must clearly show the public a new LDP, an LDP that will change,” Kishida said at a press conference Wednesday.

A Yomiuri Shimbun national opinion poll conducted in July revealed that support for the Kishida Cabinet was stuck in the 20% range for the ninth consecutive month, as the impact of a hidden funds scandal that embroiled several party factions continued to reverberate.

Japanese Public Wary About Health Insurance Card Merger into My Number

Daisuke Nohara & Shingo Okuma from The Mainichi:

This December, in line with integrating Japan's health insurance cards with the "My Number" IC-chipped ID cards, existing ones will in principle be discontinued. A July 20-21 Mainichi Shimbun poll revealed that despite hopes for improved convenience and other benefits as part of the government's push toward a digital society, fears remain strong over data protection and other matters, and opposition to the government's handling proved more conspicuous than criticism of the new system itself.

Communication from government is key. But also actions (and in this case inaction) are important. The several My Number-related controversies over the past few years have severely impacted the public's perception of an already unpopular system. The Digital Agency needs better PR (and better quality assurance) to make the future of this system less bleak.