Top Stories - Economy

And that's in November. How many of the 85,000 temporary and day workers who have lost or are expected to lose their jobs (and their places to live) by March will join them? It seems to be that Japan, Inc. has gone awry.

I think I've seen a story similar to this one either on JAPUNDIT or elsewhere previously - but this originates out of New Zealand so what can you say?

Japan's dollar-based per-capita gross domestic product in nominal terms was the lowest of all the Group of Seven (G7) countries in 2007.

It was 19th among the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the lowest position since 1980. No comparable figures are available before that year.

"In a way, the slumping economy works well for Tokyo Disneyland," said Hiroshi Watanabe, an economist at the Tokyo-based Daiwa Research Institute.

This guy looks real excited over his company's IPO...

Dozens of cities and towns with large numbers of foreign residents called on the central government Wednesday for help in protecting their jobs and supporting them amid the rapidly crumbling labor environment.

LVMH, the world's biggest luxury goods group, has scrapped a planned Louis Vuitton flagship store in Tokyo's glitzy Ginza shopping district, as a spreading recession takes the luster off designer brands.

LVMH has broken off talks over opening a store in a planned building in Ginza due for completion in 2010, an official for the developer, Hulic Co Ltd, said.

BEIJING, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- The central banks of China, Japan and Republic of Korea have agreed to meet annually to discuss financial issues to promote financial stability in the region...

The same government bureaucrats who keep taxi fares at artificially high levels are now hard at work trying to figure out how to cut the supply of taxis on the road.

And they say they are doing so to protect you from the dangers caused by taxi drivers scrambling for passengers and reckless driving.

Aren't you happy you have such nice people looking out for you?

Toshiba Corp , the world's No. 2 maker of NAND flash memory, will halt chip production at two plants for nine days due to weak demand, in its first output break in seven years, broadcaster NHK reported on Friday.

Honda is pulling out of Formula One, blaming the world economic crisis for plans to sell its team, which costs more than £300m a year to run.

Japanese car sales have plummeted at a pace not seen since the bleak economic days of the early 1970s. Confirming fears that Japan has crashed into its sharpest downturn since the Second World War, November sales of cars, lorries and buses plunged by 27.3 per cent from the previous year.

The internal affairs ministry said on Friday people of all income levels in principle will be eligible for the planned cash handouts aimed at giving some relief to people during increasingly tough economic times.

More bad news for the Japanese economy. Seems like the recession is digging it's claws in pretty deeply over here now.

As America's financial crisis has deepened, Japan has found itself gripped by a growing sense of deja vu.