Like the article that I read last week, the one about women moving from rural areas to big cities, the article “Japan cries 'Help wanted,' but few foreigners heed the call” is concerned about demographic changes in Japan. Specifically, it talks about the lack of workers in semi-skilled jobs. The article mentions 2 out of the 14 fields that workers can work in, which are nursing industry and the food service industry. Japan plans to bring in 345,000 semiskilled workers over the next five years, targeting Southeast Asia countries, but so far has only reached 0.1% of that quota in half a year.
The article tries to find reasons why so few people have been accepted into the program. Japanese companies themselves are reluctant to pay foreigners as much as native workers, which they would be required to under the new law. Furthermore, the countries which Japan hopes to take workers from, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, aren’t letting their citizens go.
The article leaves out a lot of details though. According to an Economist article, “Japan’s plan to let in more low-skilled migrants is half-baked”, the new semi-skilled immigration laws are incomplete and confusing. For example, bosses will have to help their new foreign employees learn Japanese, but the laws don’t specify how. Japan hasn’t set up many of the necessary test centers for assessing workers’ Japanese fluency and skills. The Japantimes article only described one change that Japan made from its old system, which is that companies now have to pay new semi-skilled workers the same amount of money as Japanese workers. However, it seems that more changes to Japan’s workplace environments need to be made before more foreigners will “heed the call.”
Apparently, according to NPR, this law was passed in response to pressure from the business community and against Prime Minister Abe’s right-wing supporters. I think Japan is making a step in the right direction, but not enough change has been made yet in terms of people’s opinions of foreign workers. The Economist article interviewed a Chinese woman who said that she feels like she got “tricked” into working in Japan and would not work any longer unless the laws changes to be kinder to foreign workers. I think if I were to want to work in Japan, I would only do so once Japanese culture changes to welcome foreigners, not just the laws.
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