Japanese firms working to attract, retain skilled foreign workers

A nationwide survey conducted by the Tokyo-based firm over a one-year period through June 2024, covering three sectors and 350 skilled foreign workers who quit their jobs, revealed that "wage dissatisfaction" was the top reason for leaving among Vietnamese respondents.

Hmm, needed a Tokyo-based firm to discover worker's primary gripe is "wage dissatisfaction".

That is part of the problem there, more middlemen between worker productivity and the fruit's of their labor than you can count.

The foreign trainee program has faced widespread criticism for harsh working conditions and human rights abuses, with many employers accused of exploiting the system to secure cheap labor.

The article could have just concluded with this oft repeated fact too.

Pay them well. Give them some sense of a future. Don't treat them like trash. Should be straight forward right. The tightwad Japanese employers beg to differ though.

"skilled worker" ? The photo shows someone sorting gyoza. A skill that must take all of 2 minutes training. Japan should not be importing permanent workers. If really necessary, rotate them in for 2 or 3 years. Bringing "families" only causes problems for schools and society in general.

And yet the pay is less than ¥250,000 per month, before taxes and other deductions.

Necessity is the mother of all change!

STOP treating them as slaves and you will have them for life.

Pay them well. Give them some sense of a future. Don't treat them like trash. Should be straight forward right. The tightwad Japanese employers beg to differ though.

THIS!

STOP treating them as slaves and you will have them for life.

Problem is, Japanese workers don't fare that much better either. Thing is though, things are changing. Albeit at a snail's pace, but they are.

Theyre here for the money. So hello? just pay them more money.

No matter how Japan sugar coats it, they do not want to actually intend to pay cash at the level deserved by these so called skilled workers.

Japan wants cheap labor who do not complain about how badly they are treated in Japan.

This has been a joke for over 30 years and Japan still tries to hide the fact that the skilled workers as they are called - will work hard for little money until the new batch of newbies arrive.

Specifies skilled worker...without prior training.

Just officialize work slavery.

With visa n•2, replacement of Japanese population has started, for the benefit of company owners.

They just want slaves.

One should realize than the actual exchange rate gives a additional feeling of a very low wage compared to other countries. If the yen was at 110-120 versus the US dollar like a few years back, the story would be completely different.

Those workers are often better paid than their Japanese counterparts for the same position.

Many here do not know what slavery means and is!

These is a lot more to it than just low pay. The prejudices and xenophobia contribute greatly to how these workers are treated. It is good to see this company promoting education but the education should match the level necessary to complete their jobs. A person does not need a JLPT1 to sort gyoza.

Japan does not need cheap workers. It "needs" workers. The jobs in question are available for Japanese at exactly the same salary. Just that Japanese people do not want to do these jobs. If they paid more they would get a better response. Also if parents stopped allowing their kids to sponge at home, some of these jobs could be filled.

The visa isn't tied to a job at a particular company any more, is it? So long as people can leave and join another company, conditions should naturally improve over time so long as the demand for workers remains high.

I don't know how much of the yen being low is willful, but I do not see it as benefiting ordinary people or benefitting Japanese domestic businesses like that described in the story.

Majority are sending money back to their home countries to support families left behind or pay for incurred debt coming to Japan. Most of their salaries (as low as it is) are never spent in Japan, they just leave enough to pay for living expense and the rest are remitted back home. With the very weak Yen, they need to work overtime to compensate for rising costs.

They should consider other countries in Europe which are mass hiring for the same job but different culture, better pay and working visa arrangements.

Japan's govt complains that Japanese employers are keeping wages are too low. Yet it backs an extensive program that is explicity aimed at wage suppression.

USD to the YEN as no bearing on Japans minimum wages. It the Yen buying value with local sold produce. Try shopping with USA minimum of $2.10 USD in the USA and comparing minimum wage of Y 1055 shopping in Japan. Guest what you get more item with Y1055 in Japan then $2.10 USD shopping in the USA. The problem in Japan is their citizen are educated to a high standard. Where in the USA majority are educated by Fox and Disney instead of relaying on the standard USA education system which is of the same standard as Japan. Go figure. In other word USA produce a high number of low educated citizen. Plus you have deal with illegal with no education filling and cutting the USA minimum wage of $2.10 USD. I for sure would try hard for my children to try for a high standard of wages and I assume Japanese parent are of similar thinking.

The article mentioned give them "affordable access to its many cafeterias", what exactly does it mean? Cafeterias for Japanese only? Say it ain't so...

If things are so bad here, why do they keep coming here? You are making them look stupid. I know several personally. They are not stupid, and they are very happy working here.

"Japanese firms working to attract, retain skilled foreign workers."

If firms are doing that, it's a good starting point. However, the value of the YEN always determines, the willingness to migrate, stay, or leave.

By offering furnished rental homes, Japanese language assistance

I can only imagine the billions of yen being thrown at rip-off affiliate companies, that would be better spent just paying the workers a slightly higher wage.

Focus on language skills in Japan is so over driven. Frankly, speaking companies can’t afford to pay for bilingual staff. Anyone who can speak English at a business or higher level and Japanese should be getting more pay than any Japanese person who can only speak Japanese and didn’t pay attention in school. Japanese people put so much influence on language skills and not actual skills of the job. It’s ridiculous. How many skilled people would rather go work in Taiwan or Hong Kong then come to Tokyo. It is not a prime location and in many instances can be a demotion in your career objectives. it’s remarkable how little people make here.

gokai_wo_maneku

many Third World country people continue to come here because they live in substandard housing and eat cup noodle every day to send as much money back to their home countries where after five or six years of being basic slaves here, can return and own a house and live a more comfortable life.

kohakuebisu

Yes, the skilled worker visa it’s tied to the company. Employees can’t just leave their job. If they quit, I believe they have just weeks to be able to get a new job which is impossible in a country that can take months to decide the most menial things let alone hire someone

If things are so bad here, why do they keep coming here? 

Because the salaries are far, far lower in the places they are coming from - Vietnam, China, Bangladesh etc.

Millions of SE Asians see Japan as having high salaries and favourable working conditions. On the other hand, most from wealthy Wrstern nations would view things differently.

The article mentioned give them "affordable access to its many cafeterias", what exactly does it mean? Cafeterias for Japanese only? Say it ain't so...

Never heard of a company cafeteria? Just fell off the turnip truck?

Does Japan considered skilled work making gyoza, farming fish? The mindset has to change the workers go to Japan because the money is more than they can earn in their own countries but the mistreat is what turns these foreigners workers off. Japanese go to other countries expecting to get treated and paid well but it’s not the same way for foreigners in Japan

I do hope these firms operate with a stronger ethical approach than my former company which hired western staff on one-year contracts for up to twenty years, then having led us to believe that we were valued members of the team, fired us all in March 2018, one day before Abe’s revised labor law would have granted us the same permanent contracts which Japanese staff enjoyed from Day One of setting foot in the building.

Eighteen years I gave them. And they threw us all out on the scrapheap rather than treat us equally.

For many of those who are just guessing the problems, I can shed actual information on the situation.

Firstly, the Japanese government created this program to assist companies who can't employ enough staff locally. The only option remaining to these companies is to shift their operations overseas or close down. So many of you who are disgruntled with companies' low salaries would be more disgruntled that you couldn't buy locally made food/products.

The foreigners who are brought here are trained in their own country before being brought to Japan. They undergo another several weeks of training before they are sent to their employers to begin work. The training consists of language skills and cultural understanding (work and social). The companies pay for all the training, return airfares, and their accommodation, as well as health and other benefits, and in some cases, some of their meals are provided at some companies.

So the salaries, although appearing to be small, are not so bad when considering the above. For those who are disgruntled with low salaries, you would more than likely be more disgruntled with paying more money for locally made products if the companies had to pay higher salaries on top of what they ate already paying out.

I'm not blind to the fact that some companies are taking advantage of foreigners in their employ. It happens and some companies are caught and dealt with accordingly. There are some foreigners who are sent here only to run away from their employers to obtain money by ill-gotten gains. It goes both ways. But they are not the majority and there are many foreign employees appreciating the opportunity to work and make money for their families, something they couldn't do in their own country.

If you don't believe this, talk to people in the industry and find out for yourself the actual situation instead of reading something into this story that is not there.

substantial support for housing rentals and coverage for food expenses to help offset the rising cost of living due to inflation

Although here or there a few nice and gentle moves, but if companies cannot pay enough by standard or employees need to work under such insufficient conditions as they also cannot find better employers elsewhere then something substantially is really wrong in economy. That sounds like a situation short before bankruptcies at many similar workplaces.

"As labor-strapped Japan faces a growing exodus of foreign workers due to low wages and other employment challenges, some companies are sub-contracting them out to mafia groups that force them to into working overtime to keep them from leaving."

Fixed it.

In any case, who's surprised? I have friends saying they want to work abroad in Asia but Japan is not even an option anymore and have chosen South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, or China and pointed out their strong and growing economies. Japan has been warned about this for three decades but has done nothing, so not surprised they are now struggling since the ship has already sunk. Come on... what's Japan going to do, honestly? Going to give them an extra 10-yen per hour while inflation pushes costs on food and other necessities, including power and hydro, up 20% every couple of months? What "better life" can Japan promise them that would actually be better than the current alternatives?

JamesTCL: "It happens and some companies are caught and dealt with accordingly. "

No, they most certainly are not, unless cases of suicide or murder come about, and then you have a scapegoat, yes. Most of the time any cases of abuse come out the government just says they have no way of knowing who the subcontractors of the subcontractors are. It is a well-known fact that the inturn program in Japan is a front for human labor trafficking, plain and simple. The government of Japan does not want to deal with it because they make money and can claim they are dealing with the depopulation and worker shortage problems.

There are quite a few stories of "interns" escaping back to their home countries and saying they came with a dream but were forced to live in a single room with many other people, were given a rice ball a day (or something equally meagre), and were forced to work to pay off the debt incurred for "training", "room and board", etc. They get more and more into debt and so cannot leave. The government does NOT deal with this at all.

Providing accommodation is like placing a loose around the works neck if you are a single women. What happens is the woman or girl mostly is put in a position of "you do me a favour position" with the posibility of not just losing you Job but your cheap accommodation also. So girl and women don,t be lure with free accommodation. You can alway get another job but finding a new aparto is a lot harder. So there will be no worries about losing the place you live in.

smithinjapan: in my defense, the word "some" refers to a small number of companies as the incidents that have occurred are quite small compared to the overall numbers we are talking about. Incidents do happen, just as they also happen in other countries. Japan is not perfect, just as every other country is not perfect. All one can hope for is that the few shady companies are caught and dealt with accordingly.

As for your comment: "What "better life" can Japan promise them that would actually be better than the current alternatives?" Many of these foreigners who come to Japan don't have jobs in their own country. They are an extra mouth to feed in a family that is desperate to put food on the table for all. Many of these foreigners have low or no education skills, but they are taught Japanese language before they are brought to Japan (at the expense of the employer), then trained to do a job that most Japanese workers shun. In most cases, many of the foreign workers save enough money (usually through overtime work) to send back to their families. They have a guaranteed paying job for at least 3 years, accommodation, meals provided in some cases, and a chance to further their stay in Japan through study programs. I'm sure many of them are grateful for this.

I would bet hugely that for every sad story you might hear, there are at least 100 good stories, or more, if a survey was taken. Of course every foreign worker wants more money, but who doesn't?