{"id":9108,"date":"2011-06-20T10:48:47","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T01:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=9108"},"modified":"2011-06-21T17:14:58","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T08:14:58","slug":"terries-take-on-how-japanese-companies-are-too-addicted-to-cheap-chinese-trainee-labor-to-hire-unemployed-japanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=9108","title":{"rendered":"Terrie’s Take on how Japanese companies are too “addicted” to cheap Chinese “Trainee” labor to hire unemployed Japanese"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"IN<\/a>
New novel IN APPROPRIATE by ARUDOU Debito<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\nUPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
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Hi Blog. Received this this morning from Terrie Lloyd. Very much worth reading, as it shows the damage done by the market aberration (if you believe in free markets as the final arbiter of fairness) of holding labor costs artificially low — you get resistance to ever raising them again once business gets used to those costs as being “normal”. As wages and working conditions in Japan continue their race to the bottom, it seems that two decades of NJ “Trainee” near-slave and slave labor will come back to haunt the Japanese economy after all. Arudou Debito<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E ‘S T A K E * * * * * * *
\n A weekly roundup of news & information from Terrie Lloyd.
\n(<\/strong>http:\/\/www.terrie.com<\/strong><\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

General Edition Sunday, June 19, 2011, Issue No. 618
\nAddicted to Chinese Trainees, e-biz news from Japan
\nDate: \tJune 19, 2011 11:49:26 PM JST<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to an article in the Japan Times on Thursday,
\nquoting numbers from a Labor Ministry report released
\nearlier in the week, there are now 2.02m people in Japan
\nreceiving welfare checks, more than any time since 1952.<\/a>
\n“Welfare” in Japan is apparently defined as financial
\nassistance offered by the government to a household when
\nits total income falls below the national minimum.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Presumably a big contributor to this record number of needy
\npeople has been the Great East Japan earthquake in March.
\nThe level of joblessness has soared to around 90% of
\nemployable survivors in the worst hit areas, and by
\nthe end of May about 110,000 were out of work and applying
\nfor the dole at various Hello Work offices in Iwate,
\nMiyagi, and Fukushima prefectures.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

So, one would think that with this excess capacity of
\nworkers, many of whom are from the agricultural, fisheries,
\nand manufacturing industries, juxtaposed with the
\nphenomenon of disappearing Chinese trainee workers from
\nfactories around the same regions, less than half of whom
\nare yet to return, that there would be a slew of local
\nhirings to make up the shortfall. Certainly after the
\nChinese trainees fled the disaster areas, there were plenty
\nof news reports of employers grumpily saying, “We can’t
\ntrust Chinese employees, next time we’ll hire locals.” <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But are they following through with local hiring offers?
\nOur guess is “not”.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The reason is because a Japanese breadwinner from Iwate on
\nunemployment, or even welfare, can still receive 2-5 times
\nmore than the Chinese trainees do for the same jobs. The
\nfactory and farm operators may grizzle about their
\n“unreliable” Chinese employees, but without this source of
\nultra-cheap labor, they have no way of being able to
\ncompete with the flood of goods and produce coming in from
\nChina itself. The fact is that thousands of small companies
\nall over Japan are addicted to cheap trainee labor from
\nChina and elsewhere, and to go local they would soon go out
\nof business. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Thus, unless the government comes up with some kind of
\nsubsidy system, the folks in Fukushima will stay unemployed
\nand the missing trainees will be replaced with new trainees
\njust as soon as the recruiters in the remoter regions of
\nChina can find them.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We have mentioned before in Terrie’s Take (<\/strong><\/em>TT-399 —
\nTrainees or slaves?<\/strong><\/em><\/a>), foreign “trainees” in Japan are paid
\na pittance. On average they make about JPY60,000 a month in
\nthe first year, then if they are lucky, around JPY120,000 a
\nmonth for the following two years, after which they have to
\nreturn to their home country. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

One of our readers alerted us to an excellent report just
\nput out this month by a Hong Kong labor relations think
\ntank called the China Labor Bulletin. The report is called
\n‘Throw Away Labor — The Exploitation of Chinese “Trainees”
\nin Japan’ and is a encapsulation of the appalling
\nsituation involving the virtual slave trade going on
\nbetween Chinese recruiters and small- to medium-sized
\ncompanies in rural Japan who need this cheap labor to
\nsurvive. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Get the report at: <\/strong><\/em>http:\/\/www.clb.org.hk\/en\/node\/101071<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.
\nIt’s a quick read.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The report chronicles the various miseries that Chinese
\ntrainees experience once they get to Japan, including:
\nwithheld wages, no or very underpaid overtime, withheld
\npassports, threats of law suits if they flee back to China,
\nunsanitary living conditions, extremely difficult working
\nconditions… well the list goes on. And of course it’s
\ndebatable whether such trainees actually receive any
\neducation worth taking home with them.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The problem is that when you have poor and relatively
\nuneducated people from the Chinese hinterland making just
\n2,000 yuan per month (JPY26,000), almost anything sounds
\nbetter than what they have, especially when a recruiter
\nmentions Japan. The report details how trainees are
\ninveigled into a contract, and once committed, how they are
\nlocked in to delivering that contract under very harsh (and
\nreal) threats of legal action back in China. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This cheap labor addiction represents the reality of the
\nJapanese rural labor market. No doubt we’ll see the media
\nhighlighting how locals are landing construction jobs and
\ngetting back on their feet — that makes for feel-good
\ncopy. But with only a comparatively small number of such
\njobs going, there may well be a larger number of new
\n“trainee” visas being issued so as to ensure that
\nthe rural factories and farms stay in business for a while
\nlonger.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

SUBSCRIBE to, UNSUBSCRIBE from Terrie’s Take at:
\nhttp:\/\/mailman.japaninc.com\/mailman\/listinfo\/terrie<\/a><\/p>\n

BACK ISSUES
\nhttp:\/\/www.japaninc.com\/terries_take<\/a>, or,
\nhttp:\/\/mailman.japaninc.com\/pipermail\/terrie\/<\/a>
\nENDS
\n\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

FOR THE RECORD, TERRIE’S TAKE 399, REFERRED TO ABOVE:<\/strong><\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E ‘S T A K E * * * * * * * *
\n A weekly roundup of news & information from Terrie Lloyd.
\n(<\/strong>http:\/\/www.terrie.com<\/strong><\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

General Edition Sunday, November 12, 2006 Issue No. 399
\nCourtesy <\/strong>http:\/\/www.japaninc.com\/tt399<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier on this month, the Yomiuri newspaper carried an
\narticle about an auto parts manufacturer in Akitakata,
\nHiroshima, which is being investigated for hiring more
\nforeign “trainees” than allowed by the rules. The company
\napparently padded the number of its regular employees, so
\nthat it could bring on an additional 3 Chinese trainees
\nto add to the 3 already working there. The company had
\ndiscovered that not only were the trainees able to do the
\nsame work as locals, they are more than 50% cheaper.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

While this case may not seem like such a big deal, it is
\nthe tip of a pretty ugly iceberg. The government’s foreign
\ntrainee program, which started with the grand design of
\nhelping to lift the basic skills of Japan’s neighbors, now
\nappears to have degenerated into being little more than a
\npipeline of low-cost laborers to keep struggling small
\nmanufacturers and farmers going.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The trainees work\/train under near-slavery conditions and
\nthe fall-out from this seems to be increasing. Last year
\nalone, 1,888 of them ran away from their postings, many
\ngoing on to become illegal workers elsewhere in the
\ncountry. Broken down by nationality, they numbered 3,516
\nChinese, 2,629 Vietnamese, and 1,498 Indonesians — pretty
\nmuch the same ratios as the nationalities being brought in
\nunder the program.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

There are about 83,000 trainees accepted into Japan each
\nyear, about 160,000 in total, of which just over 70%
\n(55,000 annually) are from China. They are allowed to work
\n(ummm, sorry, “train”) in 62 different types of industry,
\nsuch as agriculture, food processing, construction,
\napparel, and animal husbandry.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The numbers in agriculture are a particular eye-opener and
\nforetell labor trends in this country. Young Japanese
\nreally don’t want to work the land and thus there are now
\nabout 9,000 foreign trainees bolstering the sector,
\ncompared with just 2,200 Japanese high school graduates.
\nThat means there is a 4:1 likelihood that next time you
\nwant to buy a daikon or eggs directly from the farm, you’d
\nbetter be able to speak Mandarin.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The trainee system has been turned into a form of legalized
\n“slavery”. Most trainees for the duration of their 3 years
\nhave virtually no employment rights (they are, after all
\nsupposed to be trainees not employees) and are paid
\nunbelievably low compensation — just JPY66,000 (average) a
\nmonth plus accomodation in the first year, and a more
\nluxurious JPY118,000 (average) or so for the following two
\nyears. Could you survive on this? We’d have problems…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The treatment some of these trainees are receiving is
\npretty shocking. The “Association Tokushima”, a group
\nassisting Chinese laborers with problems in Japan, says
\nthat they have documented a case of a 27-year old female
\ntrainee working for a Tokushima-based food processing
\nplant, who received just JPY70,000\/month for working 8
\nhours a day, 6 days a week, and an overtime allowance of
\njust JPY300\/hour. Apparently she was working 14 hours a
\nday, then moon-lighting doing farm work on Sundays.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In another case, covered in the Asahi Shimbun back in
\nAugust, a Chinese female trainee arrived in Japan to learn
\nhow to grow spinach and strawberries. But somehow she wound
\nup in a Forestry company. While there, she was required to
\nclean the company president’s home and even polish his
\nshoes. During her first year, in 2004, she received an
\nallowance of JPY50,000\/month and JPY300\/hour for overtime.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After she “graduated” from her first year and become a
\nso-called documented worker, her salary was supposedly
\nlifted to JPY112,000\/month plus overtime. But in reality
\nthe company deducted JPY90,000\/month for rent, futon lease
\n(really!), washing machine lease, etc. To top it all off,
\none of her managers had her apartment key and about 4
\nmonths into her traineeship started visiting and demanding
\nsexual services.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conditions like these came to the notice of the press in
\nAugust, when a Chinese trainee at a pig farm in Chiba
\ncomplained about the harsh work conditions and was told
\nthat his traineeship would be terminated. This of course
\nmeant that he would be banished back to China — trainees
\nseldom get an extension unless the sponsoring company wants
\nthem. In despair, he went berserk and stabbed 3 people,
\nincluding an official of the Chiba Agricultural
\nAssociation, the very organization that had brought him to
\nJapan in the first place. The official died. Since then,
\nthe Ministry of Agriculture and other trainee
\nprogram-related ministries have started to review means of
\nenforcing the rules of the program that are supposed to
\nprotect the trainees from these types of abuses.<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare,
\ncompanies accepting foreign trainees and workers are mostly
\nsmall-scale businesses with less than 19 employees. There
\nwere more than 180 documented cases of fraud or
\nmistreatment last year (2005) and it is suspected that a
\nlot more cases go unreported. In fact a Ministry of Health
\nsurvey found that of 731 reviewed companies, a full 80% of
\nthem were violating the minimum wage law and labor
\nstandards law for their 2nd- and 3rd-year trainees.
\nObviously the problem is severe enough that the Ministry is
\nallocating JPY400m (US$3.38m) to its quango looking after
\nthe placement of trainees, JITCO, for the purpose of
\nmonitoring participating companies to make sure that they
\nstay compliant with the trainee program rules.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the falling birth rate and migration of the domestic
\nworkforce out of hard labor jobs, Japan clearly has to turn
\nto foreign workers to keep things going. The government
\nknows this and is infact planning to expand the trainee
\nsystem. Among the proposals are to increase the number of
\ntrainees a company can employ from just one for every 20
\nstaff, to an unlimited number, and to increase the variety
\nof jobs that a trainee can fill. Some employer
\norganizations are even calling for rule changes to make it
\nlegal to bring in unskilled foreign workers in the same way
\nthat they can already do with skilled ones.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the expansion can’t go ahead until someone takes
\nresponsibility for properly protecting the welfare of the
\ntrainees. Although JITCO is being assigned this role, with
\nthe increased number of inspectors, in fact, given that
\nthey are a major player (they account for about 60% of
\ntrainees) in sourcing and matching the trainees, and so it
\nseems like the current problems are in fact JITCO’s to solve.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead, we feel that the government should legislate to
\nkeep traineeships to just one year and make sure that
\nclasses from a local education institution — which need
\nnew students — are incorporated. Once trained, graduates
\nshould be allowed to become regular workers and enjoy the
\nbenefits of a minimum salary, labor rights, and the ability
\nto get their visas renewed. Those that don’t pass their
\nfirst year should be sent home.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Already a step in the right direction is being taken, in
\nthe way that semi-skilled Filippino health care workers are
\nto be handled. If they pass their language tests and gain
\na solid record during their training period they will be
\nallowed to stay and work in Japan indefinitely…<\/strong><\/em>
\n<\/strong> [Note from Debito: Hah<\/a>.]
\nENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Received this this morning from Terrie Lloyd. Very much worth reading, as it shows the damage done by the market aberration (if you believe in free markets as the final arbiter of fairness) of holding labor costs artificially low — you get resistance to ever raising them again once business gets used to those costs as being “normal”. As wages and working conditions in Japan continue their race to the bottom, it seems that two decades of NJ “Trainee” near-slave and slave labor will come back to haunt the Japanese economy after all.<\/p>\n

Terrie Lloyd: According to an article in the Japan Times on Thursday, quoting numbers from a Labor Ministry report released earlier in the week, there are now 2.02m people in Japan receiving welfare checks, more than any time since 1952. “Welfare” in Japan is apparently defined as financial assistance offered by the government to a household when its total income falls below the national minimum.<\/p>\n

Presumably a big contributor to this record number of needy people has been the Great East Japan earthquake in March. The level of joblessness has soared to around 90% of employable survivors in the worst hit areas, and by the end of May about 110,000 were out of work and applying for the dole at various Hello Work offices in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures.<\/p>\n

So, one would think that with this excess capacity of workers, many of whom are from the agricultural, fisheries, and manufacturing industries, juxtaposed with the phenomenon of disappearing Chinese trainee workers from factories around the same regions, less than half of whom are yet to return, that there would be a slew of local hirings to make up the shortfall. Certainly after the Chinese trainees fled the disaster areas, there were plenty of news reports of employers grumpily saying, “We can’t trust Chinese employees, next time we’ll hire locals.”<\/p>\n

But are they following through with local hiring offers? Our guess is “not”.<\/p>\n

The reason is because a Japanese breadwinner from Iwate on unemployment, or even welfare, can still receive 2-5 times more than the Chinese trainees do for the same jobs. The factory and farm operators may grizzle about their “unreliable” Chinese employees, but without this source of ultra-cheap labor, they have no way of being able to compete with the flood of goods and produce coming in from China itself. The fact is that thousands of small companies all over Japan are addicted to cheap trainee labor from China and elsewhere, and to go local they would soon go out of business….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,4,16,11,48,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-labor-issues","category-problematic-foreign-treatment","category-shoe-on-the-other-foot-dept","category-unsustainable-japanese-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9108","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=9108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}