{"id":15203,"date":"2018-11-10T09:03:40","date_gmt":"2018-11-10T19:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15203"},"modified":"2018-11-10T10:53:04","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T20:53:04","slug":"jt-goj-cabinet-approves-new-nj-worker-visa-categories-small-print-dont-bring-your-families-or-try-to-escape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15203","title":{"rendered":"JT: GOJ Cabinet approves new NJ worker visa categories. Small print: Don’t bring your families. Or try to escape."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. As per the JT article below, the next wave of NJ temp labor has been officially approved by the Abe Cabinet. The new statuses mostly still have the caveat of being temp, unrooted labor (bringing over families is expressly verboten). \u00a0And you can qualify for something better if you manage to last, oh, ten years — around one-fifth of a person’s total productive working life. \u00a0Because, as the JT reported in a follow-up article days later, time spent working under these visa statuses in particular does NOT count towards their required “working period” when applying for Permanent Residency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another interesting part of this article is the bit about how many Indentured “Trainee<\/a>” NJ workers had “gone missing” from their generally harsh modern-slavery working conditions<\/a> (4,279) so far this year, and how it might even exceed last year’s record total of\u00a07,089. \u00a0Anyway, with the news below, the GOJ looks set to invite in even more people<\/a>, in even more work sectors, and with the regular “revolving-door<\/a>” work status (i.e., not make immigrants out of them).<\/p>\n

Some people have gotten wise to this practice and are staying away from Japan<\/a>, but I bet many won’t. \u00a0Unless we let them know in venues like Debito.org. \u00a0Dr. Debito Arudou<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s Cabinet approves bill to introduce new visa categories for foreign workers, to address shrinking workforce<\/strong>
\nBY SAKURA MURAKAMI AND TOMOHIRO OSAKI STAFF WRITERS<\/strong>
\nThe Japan Times, Nov 2, 2018, courtesy of JDG (excerpt)<\/strong>
\nCourtesy https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2018\/11\/02\/national\/major-policy-shift-japan-oks-bill-let-foreign-manual-workers-stay-permanently\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The Cabinet approved a bill Friday that would overhaul the nation\u2019s immigration control law by introducing new visa categories for foreign workers, in an attempt to address the graying population and shrinking workforce.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCreating a new residence status to accept foreign workers is of utmost importance as the nation\u2019s population declines and businesses suffer from lack of personnel,\u201d Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a news conference on the day.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Although details remain hazy, the new bill marks a departure from previous policy in allowing foreign individuals to work in blue-collar industries for a potentially indefinite amount of time if certain conditions, such as holding a valid employment contract, are met.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet amid concerns over whether the nation has the infrastructure and environment to accommodate an inflow of foreign workers, the government has categorically denied that the overhaul will open the doors to immigrants.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not adopting a policy on people who will settle permanently in the country, or so-called immigrants,\u201d Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the Lower House Budget Committee on Thursday. \u201cThe new system we are creating is based on the premise that the workers will work in sectors suffering labor shortages, for a limited time, in certain cases without bringing their families.\u201d…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The overhaul, which would come into effect in April if passed during the current extraordinary Diet session, would create two new residence status types for foreign individuals working in sectors suffering labor shortages.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The first category would be renewable for up to five years and would require applicants to have a certain level of skill and experience in their fields. As a general rule, workers in this category would not be allowed to bring family members into the country.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The second category would be renewable indefinitely for workers with valid employment contracts. This category would require a higher level of skills than the first category and would allow workers to bring along spouses and children.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Regardless of the category, the foreign workers would be required to work in designated sectors that face labor shortages. Some 14 sectors are being considered for designation in the first category, whereas five are being considered for the second, media reports have said. Those sectors include the construction, agriculture and hotel industries.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Opposition lawmakers have slammed the apparent haste with which the government is trying to pass the amendment, proposing that it prioritize rectifying the current Technical Intern Training Program \u2014 which is rife with allegations of human rights violations and abuse \u2014 before further expanding avenues for foreign labor.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking to the same Lower House Budget Committee on Thursday, Justice Minister Yamashita revealed that a total 4,279 trainees under the program had gone missing in the January-July period this year.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an extraordinary figure,\u201d said lawmaker Akira Nagatsuma of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, adding that the pace suggests the number of missing interns in 2018 could exceed last year\u2019s record \u2014 7,089 \u2014 by year-end.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nagatsuma also said that the whereabouts of many of these trainees who disappeared from work remain unknown, with Justice Ministry data showing that there were 6,914 such individuals staying somewhere in the country, under the radar, as of January this year. \u201cI believe that this year will also see a substantial number of missing trainees in total, but I don\u2019t think we should blame the foreign nationals who ran away in all of these cases. I\u2019m sure there are lots of cases where the trainees felt they had to get away, or even thought they might die if they stayed,<\/a>\u201d Nagatsuma said, citing examples of trainees being harassed or bullied, cooped up in a cramped apartment and consigned to menial jobs that require no technical skills<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very irresponsible of the government to try to open more doors for foreign workers while turning a blind eye to these existing problems under the trainee program,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Opposition lawmakers also say the government\u2019s claim that it will set rigid, high-bar criteria for transition from the first visa type to the second \u2014 lest the system be misconstrued as Japan shifting toward accepting immigrants \u2014 might not sit well with the nation\u2019s business community.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In a hearing with multiple ministries earlier this week, Kazunori Yamanoi, a lawmaker for the opposition Democratic Party For the People (DPFP), raised a hypothetical, but highly likely, situation in which trainees recruited under the existing internship program switch to the new visa framework after up to five years of their apprenticeships.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Under this scenario, these foreign workers will have stayed in Japan for a total 10 years by the time their visa expires after another five years. \u201cBy then, those foreign workers with 10 years of experience in Japan will have developed such seasoned skills that they may even hold critical positions in their companies \u2026 and I would imagine company employers wanting them to transition to the second-category visa so they can stay on,\u201d Yamanoi said.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A Justice Ministry official, when contacted by The Japan Times, said it is \u201ctheoretically possible\u201d that these workers with 10 years of experience in Japan would qualify for permanent residency, but how the reality will play out is still uncertain…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Full article at\u00a0https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2018\/11\/02\/national\/major-policy-shift-japan-oks-bill-let-foreign-manual-workers-stay-permanently\/<\/a><\/p>\n

===============================<\/p>\n

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JT: The Cabinet approved a bill Friday that would overhaul the nation\u2019s immigration control law by introducing new visa categories for foreign workers, in an attempt to address the graying population and shrinking workforce. \u201cCreating a new residence status to accept foreign workers is of utmost importance as the nation\u2019s population declines and businesses suffer from lack of personnel,\u201d Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a news conference on the day.<\/p>\n

Although details remain hazy, the new bill marks a departure from previous policy in allowing foreign individuals to work in blue-collar industries for a potentially indefinite amount of time if certain conditions, such as holding a valid employment contract, are met. Yet amid concerns over whether the nation has the infrastructure and environment to accommodate an inflow of foreign workers, the government has categorically denied that the overhaul will open the doors to immigrants. \u201cWe are not adopting a policy on people who will settle permanently in the country, or so-called immigrants,\u201d Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the Lower House Budget Committee on Thursday. \u201cThe new system we are creating is based on the premise that the workers will work in sectors suffering labor shortages, for a limited time, in certain cases without bringing their families.\u201d…<\/p>\n

COMMENT: As the JT notes, the next wave of NJ temp labor has been officially approved by the Abe Cabinet. The new statuses mostly still have the caveat of being temp, unrooted labor (bringing over families is expressly verboten). \u00a0And you can qualify for something better if you manage to last, oh, ten years — around one-fifth of a person’s total productive working life. \u00a0Because, as the JT reported in a follow-up article days later, time spent working under these visa statuses in particular does NOT count towards their required “working period” when applying for Permanent Residency. <\/p>\n

Another interesting part of this article is the bit about how many Indentured “Trainee” NJ workers had “gone missing” from their generally harsh modern-slavery working conditions (4,279) so far this year, and how it might even exceed last year’s record total of\u00a07,089. \u00a0Anyway, with the news above, the GOJ looks set to invite in even more people, in even more work sectors, and with the regular “revolving-door” work status (i.e., not make immigrants out of them). \u00a0Some people have gotten wise to this practice and are staying away from Japan, but I bet many won’t. \u00a0Unless we let them know in venues like Debito.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,43,34,12,26,4,14,16,11,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-bad-business-practices","category-exclusionism","category-immigration-assimilation","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-japanese-politics","category-labor-issues","category-problematic-foreign-treatment","category-unsustainable-japanese-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15203"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15210,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15203\/revisions\/15210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}