General Edition Sunday, May 22, 2005 Issue No. 327
+++ INDEX
- What's new
- Services lineup
- News
- Candidate roundup
- Upcoming events
- Property
- News credits
============== AMT Group's Exclusive Seminar ==============
"Leadership Awareness Seminar" (in Japanese) at AMT Group's Development Den in Yotsuya. 10:00 - 15:00, May 17 & 19 In a small group (maximum 6 participants):
- Learn and apply new leadership & coaching tools
- Access 100+ ways to motivate yourself and others
- Practice presenting before a group of peers and professional coaches
Total investment: JPY97,000.
E-mail [email protected] for details and to register. And...for a FREE subscription to Andrew's Ax Leadership Development newsletter, e-mail [email protected]
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One person we love reading commentary from is Dr. Sean Curtin, a fellow at Glocom. Curtin is now back in the UK, but is still putting out some very interesting data and analysis about the decline of the Japanese nuclear family. In particular, he is working on a long-term research project, started in 1992, documenting the travails of 14 single-parent families headed by mothers in Hokkaido. He updates the research on a yearly basis, and is finding that the lot of single-parent households is deteriorating.
By far the highest contributor to single-parent households is divorce. You may have thought that Japanese people don't divorce that much, but in fact, according to 2005 figures from the Ministry of Welfare, the Japanese divorce rate is now 2.3% per 1,000 people, or about 267,000 break ups, every year. This is just a fraction below the rates in Germany and the UK, though still substantially lower than the 4% per 1,000 figure for the USA. But unlike the USA, the majority of single-parents in Japan are much harder done by, with little or no support from the legal system to enforce child maintenance settlements.
This situation means that there are a lot of kids, probably around 1.5m or so, who are living below the poverty line -- which is a quite unbelievable situation for modern Japan. In terms of actual numbers, a Japanese government survey published in February 2005, estimates that there were 1,225,400 fatherless families, or about 2.7%, of the country's 45.8m families. The average annual income for a single mother with at least one dependent aged less than 20 was just JPY2.12m (US$20,200) in 2002 -- compare this with the nation's overall average income of JPY6.17m (US$58,800)!
Curtin reckons that some low-income families are so poor some mothers and children are starting to suffer from malnutrition. In a recent case, a 27-year old Saitama woman and her 3-year old son starved to death in her apartment, and on searching the premises, police found that the oman only had JPY8 (7 cents) in her purse.
Part of the problem is that absent fathers are not forced by the courts to pay child allowance after divorce. According to government figures, only 34% of divorced mothers actually receive support payments, and the amount is just JPY44,660 per month. Curtin writes that attempts to pass legal measures to give the courts more power to enforce child support judgements are effectively cut down by conservative lawmakers who claim that forcing fathers to pay for divorced children goes against "Japanese tradition". Actually, they are right, because Japanese tradition did allow men to be itinerate -- but that doesn't necessarily make it right.
In our opinion, probably the best way to get men to pay for their obligations to divorced dependents is for the government to introduce laws allowing shared custody of children. It has been found in other countries that when fathers are involved in the raising of their children, they feel bonded to the kids, and thus are more willing to help look after them financially and morally. This is a very simple concept but one that requires a lot of legal and bureaucratic supervision (in terms of enforcing access) to make it work properly. At present, most fathers are denied access to their kids by emotionally hurt mothers, even when the fathers want to do the right thing.
For the full text of Curtin's article:
www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=17&ItemID=7891
For more about father's lack of access and rights in Japan,
see: http://www.crnjapan.com/press/en/
Lastly, in our PII newsletter, we cover a start-up company in the cell phone and entertainment space, which we code name "J-company". This firm has a cell-phone based social-networking service (SNS), and allows members to trade short videos and clips, as well as voice and text. The technology requires members downloading a small player on to their 2G or 3G phone, then starting to network using the players intuitive tools. The solution is extremely viral and seamless.
J-Company's CEO is a foreign entrepreneur, part based in Japan and part in Europe, where he has a low-cost software development house in Eastern Europe. This is a first round private offering - presenting all the risks and opportunities possible in this space. The company is seeking investments in blocks of JPY4MM, and welcomes both Japanese and foreign enquiries. For more information, please refer to our website at:
http://www.japaninc.com/newsletters/index.html?list=pii
...The Information Janitors/
================= Bilingual IT Services ===================
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For more information, contact, [email protected], or
call (03) 3499-2399. In English or Japanese.
===========================================================
Contact [email protected] if you want your company here.
- Personal International Investor -- a convenient source of ideas and information on how to invest profitably as an expat in Japan. Every Thursday, 48 weeks of the year. Completely free.
http://japaninc.typepad.com/personal_intl_investor/ - Advertise with Japan Inc newsletters. JIN and Terrie's Take cost just 2 yen per person to reach 51,000 people. Great for last minute offers and event advertising.
[email protected]. - Get a low-cost office in Tokyo, at the Venture Gas Station incubator. Just JPY80,000/month, in Minami-Aoyama. Spaces closing fast -- enquire now. [email protected]
- J@pan Inc. magazine has gone quarterly. Subscriptions now just JPY3,600 a year. Sign up at
http://www.japaninc.com/mag/subs.html - Find new bilingual sales staff -- a specialty for DaiJob.com, [email protected]
- Anyone can buy a .JP domain...online...real-time...in English! Register now at: http://www.JapanRegistry.com
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- Tsutaya starts online ad venture
- Seven major banks are profitable
- Tectonic plate smack dab under Tokyo
- Magnesium ion suppresses rheumatoid arthritis
- CSK invests in human-sensing radar
-> Tsutaya starts online ad venture
The owner of the Tsutaya video rental chain, Culture Convenience Club (CCC), in entering into a joint venture with IMJ Corp., to start an online advertising business in July. The new entity will be jointly owned and will place ads through the Internet and cell phones to the 18m members of the Tsutaya chain. CCC has already begun harvesting its online potential, and the Tsutaya Online shopping site has 7m registered users. ***Ed: This will be an excellent business -- imagine the demographics mining you can do on knowing what videos a person has rented...!** (Source: TT commentary from nikkei.co.jp, May 19, 2005)
http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/AC/TNKS/Nni20050519DA9J5193.htm
-> Seven major banks are profitable
For the first time in four years, all seven of Japan's largest banks will be profitable for a fiscal year (FY2004). According to the Nikkei, the combined profit will be JPY600bn (US$5.71bn), an amount mainly due thanks to a 43% drop in bad-debt losses. ***Ed: Thus we see the Japanese financial system start to make progress in their restructuring -- without a major meltdown, not that the process didn't have its moments.**(Source: TT commentary from iii.co.uk, May 15, 2005)
http://tinyurl.com/apyw4
-> Tectonic plate smack dab under Tokyo
The betting odds of a big temblor occuring under Tokyo have been increased, as a result of a geology researcher's finding that there is a fourth tectonic plate lying directly beneath Tokyo Bay. The new plate, as yet unnamed, joins the existing 3 plates, the Philippine, Pacific, and Eurasian plates, already known to researchers. The newly discovered plate is about 25km thick and 10km sq. in circumference, meaning that it is small enough to get "squeezed out" by the other much larger plates. In February this year, the government said it reckons about 11,000 people would die and there would be more than JPY112trn (US$1.06trn) of financial damage if a major earthquake hit Tokyo. (Source: TT commentary from taipeitimes.com, May 22, 2005)
http://tinyurl.com/dh7w3
-> Magnesium ion suppresses rheumatoid arthritis
Japanese salt manufacturer Akokasei has revealed that its latest research on brine water shows that magnesium ions (Mg2+) help suppress adjuvant arthritis (AA) in rats. The company says it treated leg edema (leg swelling) and other arthritis symptoms with brine and found that the reatments suppressed the formation of rheumatoid arthritis. ***Ed: No word yet on when this will lead to a commercial treatment.** (Source: TT commentary from medicalnewstoday.com, May 22, 2005)
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=24877
-> CSK invests in human-sensing radar
CSK Venture Capital has invested JP50m in the Tokyo operation of a Russian venture company which has developed an advanced life-sensing radar system. The new system uses ultra wideband (UWB) RF and can be used to find people buried alive after an earthquake, or locate terrorists hiding in buildings. The new system is substantially smaller, ligher, and cheaper than competing technologies. CSK VC will start selling the system to government agencies, including the police, later this year. (Source: TT commentary from nikkei.co.jp, May 19, 2005)
http://tinyurl.com/bl7s5
NOTE: Broken links
Many online news sources are now removing their articles after just a few days of posting them, thus breaking our links -- we apologize for the inconvenience.
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For more information, or to request an initial consultation
please contact [email protected].
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DaiJob, Inc's executive placement team, AMBITION Consulting
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DaiJob has great candidates. Contact Alex Burr at
[email protected], or Ph: 03-3499-3040 for details.
-> PR/Marketing Director
Female, mid 40s, Native Japanese, Business level English
Experience:
- 8yrs in corporate PR; 6yrs in AD agency
- Strong connections to all Japanese media
- In-depth knowledge in IT, Telecom, Financial, Fashion
- Total communication strategy (Press events, PR, seminars,
media production, trade show)
- Supported all PR strategies in IPO of telco
* Looking for JPY13M. Available at 2-4 weeks notice
--------------------------------------------
-> Sales/Marketing Director, Semiconductor
Male, late 40s, Native Japanese, Fluent English
Experience:
- 22yrs Sales/Product management of equipment, materials,
& instruments to semicon manufacturer
- Proven record in successful market penetration of
Japanese market for foreign start-up
- Deep connections with all major Japanese semicon makers
- Monitored biz units in Japan, US, & Europe
* Looking for JPY11M. Available at 1 month notice
--------------------------------------------
-> Human Resources
Female, early 30s , Native Japanese, Native level English
Experience:
- 3yrs HR support role
- Developed, coordinated, and monitored employee relations
and employee assistance programs
- Managed entire process of recruiting - from advertising,
to conducting interviews, to hiring decision making
- Assisted in planning and developing new HR policies
- Internal recruiting, employee/management development,
training, benefits & compensation, employee relations
* Looking for JPY6M. Available at 2-4 weeks notice
Contact Alex Burr at [email protected], or Ph: 03-3499-3040 for details.
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DaiJob's executive placement team, AMBITION Consulting!
+++ UPCOMING EVENTS/ANNOUNCEMENTS
(No new events this week)
______________________________________________________
IT events announcements are priced at JPY50,000 per week.
For more information, contact [email protected]
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(No new properties this week.)
* Photos at http://japaninc.typepad.com/australian_properties_e/
E-mail us at [email protected] for more details on any property listed here.
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Click through for your FREE 7-Day Trial today!
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END
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