With the Boom Long Past, Hope Fades for Japan's Disposable Workers.

With job signs stuck to their vans' windshields and sliding side doors left open in expectation, the recruiters were sizing up the potential hires at Japan's largest day labor market here recently. By 4:30 a.m., thousands of aging day laborers had spilled out of the neighborhood's flophouses and homeless shelters, or risen from its parks and streets, to form a potential work force of mostly graying men. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]