nhk world's hiroki yajima has the story. >> reporter: mikio is the president of a marine products company in ofunato, iwate prefecture. business hasn't been the same since march 11th. the tsunami killed two of his workers. it also destroyed his three factories and his plans to expand. he halted operations and discharged his 100-member staff. he focused on repairing his factories. they were up and running in july. but only 60% of his employees have returned. he's calling workers to personally invite them back. one former employee he reached says she's collecting unemployment. she's had interviews with seven other companies but hasn't been hired. >> translator: you're asking me to come back to work. but it's hard. if another tsunami were to hit, i would be worried about my childr children. i want to go back to work, but i just can't do it. not at that location. >> i can't make you come back if you don't want to. but it's a pity. >> he's also short on technical interns from china. they come to study marine processing techniques. the chinese government issued an evacuation advisory after the

hiroki yajima, nhk world. >>> politics is a tough business in japan. our latest nhk poll is proof of that. prime minister yoshihiko noda only took office a month ago. his approval rating is already slipping. nhk conducted a phone survey last weekend. the results suggest a little more than half of voters support noda's cabinet. 53% of respondents say they approve of noda's cabinet. that's a drop of seven percentage points from last month. the disapproval rating stands at 27%. an increase of nine percentage points. we also asked people about the government's propose the $120 billion tax hike to recover the cost of rebuilding northeastern japan over the next ten years. 44% say they approve of the proposal. 49% say they don't. our survey looked at the debate between the ruling democratic party and the opposition, over how long the maturity should be for that government reconstruction bonds. 48% say it should be ten to 60 years. 28% say it should be ten years. 7% say the bod mant turt should be 60 years. >>> masayo nakajima is here with more. prime minister