August 28, 2017 — A village in the far north of Japan is the nation’s richest thanks to its scallop harvesting industry; however, the operations may be threatened by a lack of labor, reports the Straights Times.
Sarufutsu village boasts some of the highest average incomes of any town in Japan, thanks to the earnings of fishermen working with scallops pulled from the Sea of Okhotsk.
But the new JPY 2.4 billion ($21.9 million) scallop factory is not running at full capacity because it cannot get enough workers for lower-paying but important jobs.