Japan’s population started declining in 2005, but in contrast, registered foreigners soared to a record high 2.01 million, a leap from 1.36 million a decade ago and accounting for 1.57 percent of the nation’s total population.
As baby boomers born between 1947 to 1949 start to retire this year, getting more foreign nationals into the workforce and into communities is increasingly becoming a hot topic for the government and businesses.
Foreigners are becoming increasingly visible, particularly Chinese people, the largest-growing ethnic segment.
They are not just part of the labor force but are also the brains behind many new jobs, technologies and services. They also bridge the two major trading partners, and more are increasingly considering Japan their home and are finding opportunities to succeed here.
Koreans still comprise the largest ethnic minority in terms of special permanent residency. In 2005, this group, including those in Japan before the war and their descendants, numbered some 598,000. Statistically, however, their numbers are declining yearly as the elderly pass away and younger Koreans opt to become Japanese citizens.
Other ethnic groups are steadily on the rise, a flow that started around the early 1990s when the country opened its doors to more foreigners to cover a labor shortage. Prominent among them are Brazilians and Peruvians of Japanese descent, but Chinese account for the most, at 519,000, or 25 percent of all registered aliens.
In addition to being long-term residents, entertainers or spouses of Japanese, Chinese like most Brazilians, Peruvians and Filipinos hold status at various levels.
In 2005, some 89,000 were registered as exchange students, 14,700 as engineers and 40,500 as trainees, while 2,500 came as university professors and 1,380 as investors.
Many meanwhile work in industries that depend on them — students employed as part-timers in restaurants, convenience stores and supermarkets, and trainees providing labor in industries ranging from textiles to fisheries to agriculture. An increasing number of small companies also want foreign information technology engineers to run their businesses.
The most notable demographic trend, though, is the rise in permanent residents. This status is generally conferred on foreigners who have “contributed to Japan” for at least five to 10 years. While the number is up for most nationalities, Chinese top the list again. More than 106,000 registered as permanent residents last year, nearly twice the figure of five years ago.
The 1998 deregulation of permanent residency criteria helped expedite the rise, the Justice Ministry said.
News
Entertainer visa issuance down over 70% in 2 years
The number of visas for entertainers issued by Japan is estimated to have fallen by more than 70% from a peak of 140,000 in 2004 to 40,000 this year on tougher visa requirements, according to data made available by the Foreign Ministry on Thursday. The government issues such visas to singers, dancers and other foreign artists willing to work in Japan.
The tougher requirements include a minimum of two years’ experience as an artist, and certification of personal identity and special education records during visa issuance procedures. The number of entertainer visas is expected to decline for Filipinos from 85,000 to less than 10,000 this year, for Chinese from 8,500 to less than 5,000 and for Russians from 6,000 to 3,000, according to the ministry’s data.
Author dismisses government’s fear mongering myth of crime wave by foreigners
For years, people like Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara have been up in arms about rising crime rates among foreigners and juveniles in Japan, but one of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s public safety experts has come out to say the claims are groundless, according to Sunday Mainichi (12/31).
Ishihara and his ilk have long laid the blame on foreigners for a perceived worsening of public safety standards that has allowed the powers that be to strengthen and crack down on non-Japanese and teens.
But Hiroshi Kubo, the former head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Emergency Public Safety Task Force, says they’ve got it all wrong.
“Put simply, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s public safety policy involves telling people that public safety standards have worsened and police groups need strengthening to protect the capital’s residents,” Kubo tells Sunday Mainichi. “But I’ve realized there’s something unnatural about this ‘worsening.'”
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/news/20061221p2g00m0dm003000c.html
Whistle-blowing systems feeble at the local level
Only 20 percent of the 47 prefectural governments and 15 major cities across Japan have third-party points to accept calls from whistle-blowers, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed.
Many other local governments have contact points concurrently managed by local government officials in charge of general affairs. But these contact points are rarely used, meaning that the system to prevent corruption in politics is not functioning properly, the survey found.
The whistle-blower protection law took effect in April this year, banning company and government officials from taking punitive action, such as dismissals, against employees who report illicit activities.
But fears of repercussions abound, particularly in governments that control the whistle-blower system.
“If one is to report wrongdoing under his or her own name, the name will be inevitably leaked and will be identified in the prefectural government,” said an official who once worked in the secretarial section of the Wakayama prefectural government, the site of a recent bid-rigging scandal that forced the governor to resign.
The official said if calls are made anonymously, they will simply be filed as “rumors.”
“We can’t do anything about it unless there is a third-party entity,” the official said.
Two prefectures, including Fukushima Prefecture, where a former governor was recently arrested over another bid-rigging scandal, and one city have no whistle-blowing systems whatsoever, the survey showed.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200612230134.html
A mobile, disposable work force
Indications of deteriorating working conditions are coming to light at workplaces across the nation as the result of a practice that has become a social issue: More and more manufacturing companies are bringing in contract workers (ukeoi) to have them work like temporary workers (haken) — as if dispatched from staffing agencies — but without haken benefits.
For laymen, the legal difference between these two types of workers is a bit hard to understand.
But the practice not only is illegal and responsible for low wages — usually about half or less of regular-employee wages — but also leads to worker instability. Companies should quit the habit, and the labor standards inspection offices should crack down on violators.
Japan ranks 79th in global report on gender gap
Japan ranked 79th in a global report measuring women’s achievements in key areas, the Swiss-based World Economic Forum said Tuesday. Nordic countries topped the list, with Sweden considered to be a country with the smallest gender gap. Sweden was followed by Norway, Finland and Iceland. The rest of the top 10 countries were Germany, the Philippines, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain and Ireland.
The report measured the extent to which women in the polled countries and regions have achieved equality with men in four areas ? economic participation and opportunity, education attainment, political empowerment, and health and survival. Japan placed first in health and survival along with 34 other nations with the same level of well-being index, but was 83rd in both economic opportunity and political empowerment, bringing the overall ranking to 79th.
Factory denies Muslim basic human rights
A sewing factory in eastern Japan required an Indonesian Muslim trainee to sign a note promising to forgo praying five times a day and Ramadan fasting as a condition of her employment, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Monday.
The firm also prohibited her from owning a cell phone and exchanging letters.
The Justice Ministry suspect the firm’s practice infringes on the woman’s human rights in violation of its guidelines for accepting trainees, which is based on the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
According to the note written both in Japanese and Indonesian, the factory prohibited the woman from worshipping on the firm’s property and fasting while in Japan.
She was also prohibited from exchanging letters domestically, sending money to her family or traveling in vehicles.
In addition, she had a curfew of 9 p.m. at her dormitory and was not allowed to invite friends there.
Gov’t looks to open up pension plan to part-time workers
The ruling coalition and government are discussing the possibility of allowing part-timers who work for an employer for more than a certain period to join the pension system, sources said.
Currently, companies are obliged to pay a half of pension premiums for their part-time employees who work more than 30 hours a week [sic].
Earlier, officials of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare tried to make some 3 million people eligible for the pension system by cutting the required hours of work to more than 20 hours a week. But those in the distribution industry, which employ many part-timers, were so vehemently opposed to the plan that the ministry dropped the idea.
But now Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly wants to allow more people to join the pension plan, prompting government and ruling coalition officials to discuss the idea of allowing part-timers who work for a certain period, probably more than one year, to join the system.
Under the idea, part-timers who work more than 20 hours a week for less than 12 months will probably be excluded from the pension system, sources said.
Currently, companies are required to pay half of pension premiums for full-time employees who work more than two months for a company.
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20061114p2a00m0na006000c.html
Chinese trainees flee poor work conditions
Three Chinese women working in a training program fled their workplace in Aomori Prefecture early Monday and contacted labor authorities to complain of poor conditions, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned.
The trainees came to Japan two years ago and have worked at a small sewing factory in Misawa in the prefecture.
The three women complained of working 13 hours a day, with their overtime pay falling short of the stipulated minimum wage, and rarely being allowed to use heaters even in midwinter at the company dormitory, which is a refurbished garage.
The three told the Yomiuri they could not bear the situation any longer with winter approaching.
Just after 5 a.m., the three trainees, each carrying an overnight bag, ran from the dormitory in front of the factory to a car driven by a member of a Fukui-based organization supporting foreign workers.
About two months before, the three telephoned the organization, after reading about it in a Chinese newspaper, and made plans to flee.
One of the trainees, a 32-year-old woman from Shanghai, said: “I came to Japan to earn money. I’ve been a migrant worker at sewing plants in Saipan and the United Arab Emirates, but I wasn’t treated this badly.”
Firms face foreign hire disclosure
The government plans to make it mandatory, and no longer voluntary, that all companies in Japan report details about noncitizens when employing or dismissing them, in order to prevent an increase in illegal employment, officials said Thursday.
The details will include the names, nationalities and visa status and duration. Employers who fail to make such reports or file false reports may be fined up to 300,000 yen. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will draft an employment promotion law amendment to this effect to submit to the Diet during the ordinary session in the first half of next year, they said.