Japan's ageing workforce: built to last
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A country must surely have something big going for it when its people live the longest, but what does longevity mean for the health of Japan's economy?
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may help people maintain their cognitive skills as they age, a 10-year Dutch study found. The study, published in Tuesday&#39;s Neurology, reviewed the data of 295 men, born between 1900 and 1920, from Finland, Italy and Netherlands.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. and Japan have the top national environments for their IT industries to grow and flourish, including intellectual-property protections and IT infrastructure, according to a study released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) Wednesday. The study, conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), ranked 64 nations on several factors, such as PC ownership, broadband adoption, government regulation, enrollment in higher education, IT employment, research and development spending, and cybercrime laws. Using 25 weighted factors, the EIU ranked the U.S. first in IT competitiveness and Japan second. Also in the top five: South Korea, the U.K., and Australia. India ranked 46th out of 64 countries included in the study, while China ranked 49th. Iran, Nigeria, and Azerbaijan were the bottom three on the list. While several members of the U.S. Congress have voiced worries about U.S. competitiveness in recent months, the nation stacks up well in all six umbrella categories, said Denis McCauley, EIU's director of global technology research. The U.S. has a robust IT infrastructure and skilled workers, he said. "Still, the U.S. is a magnet for talent overseas," he added. But the U.S. faces several challenges, he added. The U.S. government lacks a national policy to increase broadband adoption, and attempts to allow increased immigration have stalled, McCauley said. "There's no getting around the U.S. has great strengths," he said. "By the same token, I'd say there are some risks for the U.S., and one of the risks is being complacent. There's valid worry about slippage." India and China rank relatively low in the study because of a lack of intellectual-property protections and because in per capita rankings, the two countries are low in areas such as PC ownership and research investment, McCauley said. IT infrastructure in the two countries is limited to urban areas, he added. "They need to do a much better job of diffusing [IT] to more of the population," he said. China and India's low labor costs gained the countries advantages, but in the future, they will face wage competition from such nationsÂ as Vietnam, Brazil, and Russia, McCauley added. Few countries have been able to overcome major legal and infrastructure weaknesses to jump start their IT industries, and China and India need to improve their other factors as their cost advantages erode, he said. Countries most likely to move up in the rankings are "skills-rich" nations that can develop niche IT industries, the study said. In addition to Vietnam, Brazil and Russia, other likely movers include Malaysia, Estonia, Lithuania and Chile, the study said. Estonia ranked 25th, while Vietnam ranked 61st. BSA commissioned the study to set a benchmark that governments could use to improve their IT competitiveness, said Robert Holleyman, the BSA's president and CEO. "We find governments around the world that want to know what they can do to enhance their competitiveness," Holleyman said. "This will be a great survey to provide a government official not only in the U.S., but internationally."
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Web-savvy Japanese aged over 50 surf online just as often as young people do, using the Internet to arrange travel and read news, a study said Friday.
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Japan&#39;s Cabinet on Monday endorsed a draft 82.18 trillion yen ($788.7 billion) national budget for fiscal 2005, increasing overall spending to care for an aging population but trimming general and defense outlays.
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Japanâs military is one of the best-equipped in Asia and its economy is the worldâs second largest. It spreads its wealth around the world generously with foreign aid.
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The Internet, husbands who help with  housework, and merit-based pay are helping Japanese women find  a formula for balancing careers and families.
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The number of older Americans in the   work force hit a record high last month, and employment in that   age group has grown faster than any other, according to   research released on Wednesday.
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Faced with a prison population ageing as rapidly as the rest of the country, Japan is to build new jails with disabled access, including elevators, slopes for wheelchairs and grab-bars in toilets and baths.
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A study released by the Business Software Alliance finds that the U.S. and Japan have the top environments for allowing the IT industry to grow and flourish.
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Doing some work after retirement can give you the best of both worlds.
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A team of tech-savvy but patient experts in their 50s and 60s has been set up to offer consultancy for Japan's growing number of elderly small business owners on their computer needs, the Japanese arm of IBM said.
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Japan's recovery has been trundling along for more than five years, by some measures making it the longest, if not exactly most spectacular, period of continuous expansion since the war. But if you look at surveys asking ordinary Japanese people how they feel about their own circumstances, you would never guess it.
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The UK must force people to work until age 70 or pay 57 billion pounds ($102 billion) a year more in taxes to maintain income for retirees, a study commissioned by Prime Minister Tony Blair&#39;s government showed.
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Investor's Business Daily - More than 5,000 people who don&#39;t have fixed addresses are sleeping at 24-hour Internet cafes across Japan. One-third of them are in their 20s, and 23% are in their 50s, a government study found. Net cafe refugees usually rely on their cell phones to arrange temporary low-paying day-hire jobs. In Tokyo, 33% of surveyed people said they lost their homes after they quit their jobs, according to Japan Times. Many said that job hunting is difficult without a fixed address.
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Finland, the European country with the most rapidly aging population, has succeeded in convincing its workers to delay retirement, setting an example for the rest of Europe.
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SEOUL -- In a time-honored practice in South Korea's corporate culture, the 38-year-old manager at an online game company took his 10-person team on after-work drinking bouts twice a week. He exhorted his subordinates to drink, including a 29-year-old graphic designer who protested that her limit was two glasses of beer.