Permanent settler status is granted to foreigners of Japanese descent, Japanese who as children were left behind in China after the war and others with extraordinary circumstances. Permanent resident status is given to foreigners who have lived in Japan for a certain period and meet other criteria.
Brazilians of Japanese origin are eligible for permanent settler status, making it easier for them to work in Japan than other foreigners, who have to acquire a work visa, which involves employer sponsorship.
Brazilians with permanent settler status numbered 153,141 in 2006, accounting for 57 percent of 268,836 permanent settlers that year, according to the Justice Ministry. However, their children often have difficulties at public schools due to language problems, so many families opt to send them to private Brazilian schools.
Late last year, manufacturers began cutting foreign and Japanese temporary workers amid the stalling economy, forcing them out of company dormitories and cutting off the income needed to send their children to expensive private Brazilian schools, or even inexpensive public schools.
Prior to the downturn, companies had increased their hiring of foreigners on a temporary basis as a cheap and disposable labor source. The number of foreigners working as nonpermanent workers totaled 167,291 in June 2006, compared with 91,367 in June 2001, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
Hidenori Sakanaka, director general of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, an independent think tank, hailed the Cabinet Office’s move.
“Permanent settlers and residents do not have to leave Japan even if they are unemployed (as opposed to those on a work visa), so the government must look after them as they do with unemployed Japanese,” Sakanaka said.
Immigration
4,300 foreign workers face job losses
Reflecting the precarious working conditions experienced by many non-Japanese laborers, a recent government survey found roughly 4,300 foreign workers lost, or were expected to lose, their jobs as of December.
Over 30 percent of the 486,000 foreign nationals working in Japan are employed as dispatch or contract workers, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare survey found.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200901190070.html
Japan’s Brazilians demand job security as exports slow
Demanding better job and housing security, a demonstration by 300 Brazilians and their supporters [including members of the Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus] in Tokyo Sunday is just the latest sign of the impact that the global economic slowdown is having on Japan’s Brazilian-based workforce.
Waving their national flags across the busy streets of central Tokyo, the demonstrators called out, ‘Give us a chance of employment,’ ‘Stop abandoning us’ and ‘We don’t have secured housing.’
Many temporary Brazilian workers have lost jobs recently, primarily in the car and electronics industries, as Japanese exports have slumped due to the sluggish economy and the Japanese yen’s gains against other currencies. Others have been informed of planned layoffs in the spring.
Dosantos Marcos, one of the protesters, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa he was told to stay at home, since production is slow at the car parts plant where he worked for seven years. The 42-year-old Brazilian has not worked for two months.
Since September last year, when exporters began reducing production, planes to Brazil have been fully booked, according to Hidekichi Hashimoto, the third-generation Japanese-Brazilian President of the non-profit organization ABC Japan.
‘For Japanese companies, we are the easiest to cut because most of us don’t speak Japanese and they think that we have no intention of staying long,’ Hashimoto said.
But about 80,000 of the 320,000 Brazilians living in Japan have acquired the residency visa necessary to stay permanently, he said.
Takaharu Hayashi, director of Koryunet, a Brazilian-Japanese networking association in the Aichi prefecture, has received numerous calls from Brazilians working at auto factories. Toyota Motor Corp, also headquartered in Aichi prefecture, plans to cut 3,000 non- regular workers.
‘Japanese companies are saying they can’t help it when Japanese are also having difficulties keeping their jobs,’ Hayashi said. ‘There is a mentality that Japanese business owners are trying to push Brazilians to the lowest strata because they are less visible.’
As of December last year, more than 85,000 Japanese temporary workers were set to lose their jobs by the end of March.
During the New Year holiday, some 300 unemployed Japanese temporary workers gathered at a park in Tokyo to receive free lodging and food. Most were able to receive government welfare subsidies and find apartments in a week and began job search.
But Hayashi said Brazilians who have not established the necessary relations within Japanese society to help them find resources to tackle their hardships.
‘They don’t have the safety net that Japanese workers do,’ Hayashi said. ‘The gravity of a layoff is weighed much heavier on Brazilians because the government has no system to rescue them from the troubles and their options are much more limited than the Japanese.’
Brazilian workers protest layoffs in Japan
Some 200 Brazilian workers Sunday protested over layoffs by Japanese companies, which are forcing many of them to leave the country despite their community having been integrated in Japan for more than two decades.
The demonstrators, who included mothers with their children [and also included members of the Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus], marched through the centre of Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza shopping district, calling for the government’s support for stable employment.
The crowd, many holding Brazilian flags, demanded “employment for 320,000” Brazilians in Japan.
“We are Brazilians!” they shouted in unison. “Companies must stop using us like disposable labour.”
Since 1990 Japan has given special working visas to hundreds of thousands of Brazilians of Japanese descent, many of whom have taken up temporary positions as manual labourers in factories.
Amid the global economic downturn, however, many are being laid off and being forced to return to Brazil. They are often overshadowed by the 85,000 Japanese contract workers also said to be losing their jobs by March.
“No matter how hard we worked in Japan, we are being cut off because we are contract labourers,” said Midori Tateishi, 38, who came to Japan nearly 20 years ago. “Many of us are totally at a loss with children and a housing loan.”
Last year, Japan and Brazil marked the 100th anniversary after the first group of Japanese immigrants left for Brazil in search of a better life.
Brazil is now home to more than 1.2 million people of Japanese descent, or “Nikkeis”, the world’s largest population of ethnic Japanese outside of Japan itself.
Brazilians protest in Tokyo over lack of job security
Brazilian residents from the Kanto area, Aichi and other prefectures held a demonstration in Tokyo on Sunday, campaigning for greater job security for foreign workers.
Around 350 people [including Nambu FWC members following out Winter Meeting], waving Brazilian flags and carrying banners reading “A chance for employment and education,” walked the 2.5 kilometers from Shimbashi to Ginza.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090119p2a00m0na002000c.html
Foreign worker tally tops 486,000
The number of foreign workers employed in Japan stood at 486,398 at the end of October, including 118,488 in Tokyo, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Friday.
The total is more than double a previous estimate of 223,000 based on voluntary reports by employers in June 2006, before the revised employment promotion law took effect in October 2007, obliging employers to file reports on foreign employees.
By prefecture, Tokyo had the largest number of foreign workers, followed by Aichi with 60,326, Shizuoka with 31,453 and Kanagawa with 27,473.
Temporary and contract workers accounted for 33.6 percent of total foreign employees, suggesting many of them, primarily in manufacturing, have lost their jobs amid the recession.
Japan makes progress in 2009
As we start 2009, let’s recharge the batteries by reviewing last year’s good news. Here is [an abbreviated version of Arudou Debito‘s] list of top human rights advancements for Japan in 2009, in ascending order:
5. Strawberry fields forever
(Feb. 11): Fifteen Chinese trainees sued strawberry farms in Tochigi Prefecture for unpaid wages, unfair dismissal and an attempted repatriation by force. Thanks to [Tokyo Nambu and the Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus allies] Zentoitsu Workers Union, they were awarded ¥2 million each in back pay and overtime, a formal apology, and reinstatement in their jobs.Why this matters: This is another good precedent, treating non-Japanese (NJ) laborers (who as trainees aren’t covered by labor laws) the same as Japanese workers. It is also the subject of the German documentary “Sour Strawberries“, which premieres in Japan in March.
3. Non-Japanese get ¥12,000
(Dec. 20): The “teigaku kyufukin” first started out as a clear bribe to voters to “yoroshiku” the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Then complaints were raised about the other taxpayers who aren’t citizens, so permanent residents and NJ married to Japanese became eligible. Finally, just before Christmas, all registered NJ were included.Why this matters: Even if this “stimulus” is ineffective, it’s a wall-smasher: Japan’s public policy is usually worded as applying to “kokumin,” or citizens only. It’s the first time a government cash-back program (a 1999 coupon scheme only included permanent residents) has included all noncitizen taxpayers, and recognized their importance to the Japanese economy.
Multinationalism remains far from acceptance in Japan
In a country notorious for its exclusive immigration policy, the question of whether to allow Japanese to hold dual citizenship became a surprisingly hot policy topic last year after members of the ruling party breached the issue.
In many other parts of the world, it’s a matter that has already been discussed in great depth, and observers agree that an increasing number of countries are moving toward allowing citizens to become multinational.
As of 2000, around 90 countries and territories permitted dual citizenship either fully or with exceptional permission, according to the “Backgrounder,” published by the Center for Immigration Studies in the United States, and “Citizenship Laws of the World” by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Since the reports came out, several countries have lifted bans on dual nationality. As a consequence, there are more than 90 countries backing dual nationality by default today.
“The trend is dramatic and nearly unidirectional. A clear majority of countries now accepts dual citizenship,” said Peter Spiro, an expert on multi nationality issues at Temple University Beasley School of Law.
“Plural citizenship has quietly become a defining feature of globalization.”
Countries such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom who go by the principle of jus soli, which gives nationality to everyone born on their soil and territories, have long been lenient in permitting dual citizenship.
The shift is also being seen in countries that have traditionally adhered to jus sanguinis, which says that a child’s nationality is determined by his parent’s citizenship.
Japan sees biggest population fall
Japan’s population had its sharpest decline ever last year as deaths outnumbered births, posing an escalating economic threat to growth prospects amid a global recession.
With low birthrates and long lifespans, Japan’s shrinking population is ageing more quickly than any other economic power.
Health ministry records estimated the population fell by 51,000 in 2008. The number of deaths hit a record of 1.14 million … the highest since the government began compiling the data in 1947, and the number of births totalled 1.09 million.
Japan’s births outnumbered deaths until 2005, when the trend was reversed. About one-fifth of Japan’s 126 million people are now aged 65 or over.
Japanese increasingly marry at a later age, and working women wait to have children. The survey showed the number of births last year increased by just 0.02% from a year earlier.
The ministry forecast that Japan’s fertility rate – the average number of children born to a woman aged between 15 and 49 – would rise slightly to 1.36 in 2008 from 1.34 in 2007. Exact figures for 2008 were unavailable. The country’s fertility rate is far lower than that of the US, 2.10, and France, 1.98.
In recent years, the government has tried to encourage women to have more babies. But it is rare for fathers to take paternity in Japan, where traditional values tend to keep mothers at home.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/02/japan-population
Debate on multiple nationalities to heat up
Diet battle lines being drawn in wake of law change and amid Kono effort to rectify dual citizenship situation
The issue of nationality had never been discussed more seriously than it was in 2008.
In a specific legal challenge in June, the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to deny Japanese citizenship to children of unwed Filipino mothers whose Japanese fathers had not acknowledged paternity before their birth. Lawmakers quickly went to work to pass a revised Nationality Law in December.
Now, Taro Kono, a Lower House member of the Liberal Democratic Party, the larger of the two-party ruling coalition, is trying to iron out another wrinkle in the law that became apparent in October when it was learned that Tokyo-born Nobel Prize winner Yoichiro Nambu had given up his Japanese nationality to obtain U.S. citizenship.
People like Nambu follow the letter of the law with respect to the Constitution?s Article 14, which requires that Japanese renounce other nationalities by the age of 22 if they wish to keep Japanese citizenship. Yet, according to Kono, there are 600,000 to 700,000 Japanese 22 or older with two nationalities, if not more. In other words, fewer than 10 percent of Japanese with more than one nationality make that choice by the time they turn 22, Kono said.
Japan is the only developed country that does not automatically grant citizenship to babies born within its territory, allow its nationals to have multiple citizenship or let foreigners vote in local-level elections, Haku said.
“I am not criticizing Japan for that, but now we have 2 million registered foreigners, and one in every 30 babies born here has at least one foreign parent. We are in the midst of globalization whether we like it or not,” [Shinkun Haku] Haku [a member of the Democratic Party of Japan] said. “We have to discuss very seriously how we should involve foreign residents in building our society.”
He is urging Japanese to change their outlook. “For example, we shouldn’t think we ought to give foreigners local government voting rights out of pity. We should think Japan can become a better country by doing so,” Haku said.