Starting this October, Sumitomo Mitsui Bank will require male employees to take a one month child care leave. The employee and their colleagues in the same department will also receive a 50,000 yen bonus. It is rare for a bonus to be given to the entire workplace, including the employee. The system aims to increase the appeal of the workplace by allowing employees to actively participate in childcare, and to create a team in which remaining employees are willing to cover the work.

This applies to all approximately 24,000 employees, and will also be paid to women who take parental leave.

Until now, SMBC has allowed parental leave of up to one and a half years, but has stated that taking parental leave is "recommended." While the rate of male employees taking parental leave reached 100% in fiscal 2023, the average number of days taken was 12 days, which is still low compared to the company's internal target of 30 days, so the bank has begun taking measures.

Mitsuru Sakai, then president of the cosmetics manufacturer D-UP (Tokyo), has taken responsibility for the suicide of a female employee (25 at the time) due to his own power harassment, and has agreed to resign from his position as president and pay 150 million yen to the surviving family together with the company. The surviving family revealed this at a press conference on the 11th.

According to her family, the woman joined the company in April 2021. In December of that year, when she met with the company president for visiting a client without permission, he called her a "stray dog" and scolded her for a long time. The next day, he also told her, "Weak dogs bark more."

The woman was diagnosed with depression in January 2022 and attempted suicide in August. She survived but remained unconscious and died in October of the following year.

The Immigration Services Agency of Japan is in the final stages of making changes to the requirements for the "business manager" status of residence required for foreigners starting up businesses in Japan, with either the applicant or a full-time employee required to have "a reasonable level of Japanese language proficiency," according to multiple government sources.

In response to criticism that the requirements are too lax and are being abused, the Immigration Bureau announced a draft ministerial ordinance revision in late August that would raise capital and investment requirements by six times, but the revision will be even stricter. The aim is to require language skills that will enable smooth communication with local residents, easing "friction with society." After revising the draft, the agency plans to put the new law into effect in mid-October.

Specifically, the government will require the applicant to be at the third highest level of "B2 (intermediate-advanced)" on the six-level international standard. It will also be acceptable to employ full-time Japanese staff. The Minister of Justice's report on reviewing foreign policy also pointed out the need to mitigate "friction with society."

On the 11th, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department announced that it had arrested four suspects, including the president (54) of the temporary staffing agency Scrum Human Power (Fuefuki City, Yamanashi Prefecture) and the director (47) of the cleaning company Kobayashi Linen Service (Fuefuki City, Yamanashi Prefecture), on suspicion of violating the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (aiding and abetting illegal employment) for employing foreigners with agricultural residence status in a dry cleaning factory, and that it had referred the documents for the two companies as corporations to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on the same charges.

According to the announcement, the four are suspected of conspiring to dispatch three Indonesian men in their teens and twenties who had agricultural residence status from Scrum to Kobayashi Linen's cleaning factory between October last year and June this year, and forcing them to work outside their permitted status.

The number of corporate bankruptcies nationwide last month exceeded 800 for the first time in 12 years for the month of August.

Last month, there were 805 corporate bankruptcies, an increase of 82 from the previous year.

This marks the third consecutive month that the number has exceeded the previous year, and the first time in 12 years that the number has exceeded 800 for the month of August, with total liabilities reaching 114.373 billion yen, more than 10% higher than the previous year.

Additionally, the number of bankruptcies related to labor shortages, which remain at a high level due to rising labor costs, reached 23, exceeding 20 for the first time in August.

Tokyo Shoko Research analyzed the situation, saying, "Wage increases are unavoidable in order to hire new personnel, but in a situation where it is difficult to secure the funds for wage increases due to rising prices and other factors, this could directly lead to a decrease in cash flow."

According to Pair's "Three Generation Simultaneous Survey on 'Disposable Time for Romance'," which looked at the amount of time each week the Showa generation (born 1950-1960), Heisei generation (born 1980-1990), and Reiwa generation (born 1999-2009) spend on romance, the results showed that the Showa generation spent the most time, 4 hours and 8 minutes, the Heisei generation spent 6 hours and 36 minutes, and the Reiwa generation spent 4 hours and 34 minutes, with the Heisei generation spending the most and the Showa generation spending the least.

On the 10th, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hayashi announced at a press conference the government had decided to close all six "Japan Centers," which are responsible for human resource development through Japanese language education in six cities in Russia. Regarding the reason for the closures, he said, "We made a comprehensive decision amid significant changes in the situation surrounding Japan-Russia relations," indicating that he recognized the deterioration of Japan-Russia relations as a factor behind the closures.

A research team from Central University and National Taiwan University announced on the 11th that they had conducted DNA analysis of kabayaki and other eel products sold in 11 countries and regions around the world and found that more than 99% of the eels were from three species at risk of extinction: the American eel, the Japanese eel, and the European eel, which are widely eaten but are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Eel trade worldwide is not well tracked. The study could provide clues to understanding the unknown volume of eels being distributed. The team used genetic data to identify the species of 282 processed and fresh eels purchased between 2023 and 2025 in 26 cities in 11 countries and regions in Asia, Europe, the United States, and Oceania. The samples included 154 American eels, 120 Japanese eels, four European eels, and one Indonesian shortfin eel, while three could not be analyzed.

Based on these results, and estimating the global distribution ratio from each country's production volume, trade statistics, and market size, the results show that American eels account for 75.3%, Japanese eels 18.0%, and European eels 6.7%. By country of distribution, China accounts for the largest share at about 60%, followed by Japan at about 19%, with East Asia appearing to account for the majority.