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What Japan’s ‘2024 problem’ tells us about its struggles with a shrinking, ageing population
Filipino truck drivers? Chinese cabbies? Japan is loosening barriers to foreigners to keep its economy moving along.
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In 2023, Japan’s foreign worker population topped 2 million for the first time ever.
PHOTO: AFP
William Pesek
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On April 1, Japan’s logistics industry faces its biggest test in decades, one with major implications for the world’s third-largest economy.
Beginning that day, strict new curbs will limit truck drivers’ annual overtime to 960 hours. The restrictions are aimed at improving notoriously gruelling conditions in an industry that routinely demands shifts of up to 15 hours, six or even seven days a week. And to make the job more appealing.
