The Japanese government is to release a work education program into primary, middle and high school which is designed to foster positive attitudes toward work due to the growing number of people without regular jobs.

 

The government is panning to create a panel to work out the program and implement it at some schools from April 2012 possibly.

 

In fact, many universities do offer such programs, while the ministry concludes that the similar initiatives should also be taken among younger students to encourage a work ethic.

 

According to a survey, 31% of those who graduated from universities in March 2007 and 40% of high school graduates of that year quit their jobs three years after finding employment.

 

The ministry wants to involve companies in its effort so that students can gain work experience as interns both in the public and private sectors.

 

 

 

 

Internet marketplace firm Rakuten Inc. hired 16 new employees from India, which is part of the company’s efforts to internationalize and build itself into a global brand.

 

Rakuten is moving to make English its official in-house language, and it all together brought on 48 foreign new university graduates this fiscal year.

 

And all of the 16 Indians welcomed are engineers, ranging in age from 21 to 25. They will be posted in Japan and have been given conditions equivalent to the Japanese workers.

 

The company believes that with excellent programming skills and powers of concentrations, the new employees will energize their company. And the company is also considering making 30percent of Rakuten’s new graduate hires for fiscal 2011 non-Japanese.

 

 

 

 

Japan is to boost people-to-people exchanges with U.S. this year by sending young teachers of Japanese language and English to the country.

 

Tokyo is to launch new programs to send those teachers in the fiscal year in April considering concerns that bilateral ties taper off with declines the number of students studying at U.S. universities and cuts in the Japanese budget for a project to invite American and other foreign university graduates to teach English at Japanese schools. The government is about to invest 500 million yen in the fiscal 2011 budget to send 100 Japanese English language teachers aged 40 or younger to U.S. universities to learn English teaching methods for six months.

 

Cultural and people-to-people exchanges are deemed one of the three main pillars of the Japan-U.S. alliance, which the two countries aim to deepen this year following the 50th anniversary of the bilateral security treaty in 2010. The remaining pillars are security and economy.

 

 

 

 

A new discount system aiming to encourage the consumers to buy eco-friendly home appliances thus cut their carbon dioxide emissions through rewarding them is considered by the trade ministry and members of the electronics industry.

 

As the end of the government’s eco-point incentive program expires in March, the appliance sales are expected to fall as well. While this new envisioned system is likely to encourage people to continue buying energy-efficient appliance.

 

This new system is expected to be introduced in fiscal 2013, under which the amount of carbon dioxide emissions reduced for carbon credits and the money used to fund rebates to consumers.

 

The items to the discount would be flat-screen TVs, air conditioners and refrigerators. How much of a discount consumers would receive will discussed later.

 

Beginning next year fiscal year, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association plans to survey more that 100 households that replaced consumer appliances with eco-friendly ones, examining how much electricity use over a year. By calculating standard figures, the industry and ministry will determine the appropriate discount per product.

 

 

 

 Maggie Zhang joined iTV-Asia in September 2010.  She is originally from Henan, China and is “Content Coordinator” for Japan.  She is focused on a number of industries including advertising, energy, entertainment, finance, food & beverage, media and real estate.  Maggie is new to Shanghai and is exploring and learning about this great city.  She can be reached at maggie.zhang@itv-asia.com.