The Daily Yomiuri (I can’t find a link for the news there online, hence this entry) reported the birth and death numbers in Japan for the year 2007. It seems that the birthrate here has returned to a decline after increasing in the year 2006:
| Births | Birth Change | Deaths | Death Change |
| 1,120,937 | -1,341 | 1,119,492 | +24,099 |
The figures in the previous post were embedded in an article from The Daily Yomiuri on the critical need for Japanese teachers here in Japan. The number of primary and secondary students whose native language is not Japanese went over 20,000 for the first time. It should be noted that the vast majority of these students do not speak English as their first language either. The jobs are clearly out there; the challenge will be to train teachers who can teach Japanese to speakers of any language in addition to preparing speakers of these languages to teach Japanese. The breakdown of students in need of Japanese skills by language is somewhat different from the numbers of foreigners living here:
| Rank | Language | Number | Percentage |
| One | Portuguese | 7,562 | 36.5 |
| Two | Chinese | 4,460 | 21.6 |
| Three | Spanish | 3,156 | 15.3 |
| Four | Filipino | 2,176 | 10.1 |
| Five | Korean | 859 | 4.2 |
| Six | Vietnamese | 754 | 3.6 |
| Seven | English | 487 | 2.4 |
| Eight+ | Others | 1,238 | 6.0 |
So, any students out there who are still thinking about what they would like to do for a living may want to consider a career in teaching Japanese. Keep in mind that you might need to make a move to a location where there are higher concentrations of students in need. These seem to include the Kanto and Kansai areas.
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog entry on the number of foreigners living in Japan. Yesterday, The Daily Yomiuri reported the latest numbers from Japan’s Justice Ministry and its Immigration Bureau. It seems that by the end of 2006, the number of foreigners had reached a record 2,084,919—an increase of 3.6%. Here is the breakdown of the ‘top’ numbers (the Korean numbers include those from both North and South):
| Rank | Nationality | Number | Percentage |
| One | Korean | 598,219 | 28.7 |
| Two | Chinese | 560,741 | 26.9 |
| Three | Brazilian | 312,979 | 15 |
| Four | Filipino | no data | 9.3 |
| Five | Peruvian | no data | no data | Six | American | no data | no data |
For those of you keeping score at home, it seems the foreign population in Japan increased 58,717 last year; according to The Daily Yomiuri, one of the English language newspapers in this county, this rise is the 36th consecutive yearly increase. At the end of 2004, the total number, a record number, by the way, of foreign residents in Japan stood at 1,973,747; 1,195,164 of the total were registered in training or education programs. The breakdown of the top five by nationality, number, and percentage is:
| Rank | Nationality | Number | Percentage |
| One | Korean | 607,413 | 30.8 |
| Two | Chinese | 487,570 | 24.7 |
| Three | Brazilian | 386,557 | 14.5 |
| Four | Filipino | 199,394 | 10.1 |
| Five | Peruvian | 55,750 | 2.8 |
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