Society
A Soba Chain Boss Praises Foreign Staff and Draws a Boycott
Ikeda, president of the standing-soba chain Yudetaro, said foreign workers are diligent while Japanese people do not want frontline jobs, and posts declaring a boycott followed. Anger at being talked down to ran alongside first-hand accounts of restaurants that cannot staff a shift without foreign workers. The argument quickly moved from the remark itself to why Japanese applicants stay away, with wages and subsidies doing most of the work.