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February 10, 2024 14:30 Japan Standard Time
Japan’s system for recruiting foreign personnel will undergo dramatic changes. As competition for labor intensifies internationally, it is important to improve the working environment for foreigners and make Japan a first-choice country for foreigners.
The government decided to formulate a new “training and employment” program to replace the technical intern program, focusing on ensuring human resources and providing training for foreign employees. It will allow foreigners to work in Japan for three years. The government plans to amend the relevant legislation during this parliament and plans to roll out new schemes once the environment is ready to receive workers.
This technical internship program started about 30 years ago and aims to equip Japanese interns with skills that they can use after returning to their countries to make “international contributions” to Japan. But in reality, it has become a means of securing a workforce.
The labor rights protection system is not perfect, and problems such as overtime work and wage arrears occur one after another. Cases of missing interns are common.
The new training and employment program aims to “secure and develop human resources” with the explicit goal of addressing Japan’s labor shortage. In a major policy shift, foreigners will be admitted into the workforce regardless of their skills.
Under the new plan, foreigners will be allowed to change jobs within the same industry after working for one to two years. Under the technical internship system, foreign interns are in principle prohibited from actively changing jobs.
The inability to freely choose where to work and the inability to escape from the harsh working environment are the main reasons for the disappearance of interns. It is only natural that foreigners can choose where they want to work.
The government originally planned to limit the period during which foreigners could not change jobs to one year, but the Liberal Democratic Party was worried that this would lead to an excessive flow of human resources from rural to urban areas, so the government decided to set the period to up to two years. Employers who want to discourage foreign workers from job-hopping should give them higher wages and better benefits.
The new scheme will be designed to be tied to a specific skilled worker residency status, which is awarded to people with advanced skills.
The industries accepting foreigners for training and employment will be the same as those currently covered by the specific skills residence status system, such as construction, agriculture and accommodation. Workers who pass the exam will be transferred to designated skilled worker status and can work longer hours.
Japan’s working-age population is shrinking and severe labor shortages are expected to continue. In order to secure human resources, Japan must change its past practice of treating foreigners as cheap labor.
Under the technical intern system, there are many cases of foreigners paying high fees to sending agencies and coming to Japan with debts. It has also been pointed out that Japan’s watchdog agency responsible for overseeing companies that accept interns is not functioning properly.
It is important not only to create a new program but also to solve these problems one by one.
(Excerpted from the Yomiuri Shimbun on February 10, 2024)
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