FOREIGN NURSES
Since the first batch of Indonesian nurses and caregivers arrived in 2008 under a new bilateral economic partnership agreement, 570 have come to Japan, as have 310 Filipinos under another EPA that took effect two years ago.
But just two Indonesians and one Filipino — out of 254 applicants — passed Japan’s nursing qualification exam in February, becoming the first successful candidates to receive the right to work in this country indefinitely.While 89.5 percent of all exam-takers passed this year, the corresponding number for Indonesians and Filipinos was only 1.2 percent.
In response to the results as well as burdens on their employers, the number of accepting hospitals and welfare facilities in fiscal 2010 dropped by one-third for Indonesians and by half for Filipinos.
As the second batch of Filipino candidates arrived in Japan on Sunday and Indonesia is now selecting the third batch, the government has started to take measures to increase the examination pass rate.
Following are basic questions and answers about foreign nurse and caregiver applicants entering Japan under the EPAs:
Why did Japan start accepting nurse and caregiver candidates from Indonesia and the Philippines?
The acceptance is part of bilateral EPAs, one with Indonesia that took effect on July 1, 2008, and another with the Philippines that started on Dec. 11 the same year.
Under the accords, Japan can benefit from the reduction or removal of tariffs on Japanese goods. In return, Japan agreed to accept nurses and caregivers from the two countries as candidates for certification to work here.
Although the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has denied that accepting foreign caregivers is part of efforts to resolve the manpower shortage in health care, about 60 percent of hospitals and about 50 percent of welfare facilities that have accepted Indonesian candidates said they offered them jobs hoping to improve staff levels, according to a survey conducted by the health ministry.
What is required to become a qualified nurse or caregiver in Japan under the EPAs?
Both Indonesians and Filipinos must be qualified nurses in their home countries. Plus, Indonesian nurses must have more than two years of experience. Filipino nurses should have three years of experience.
For caregivers, Indonesians must be graduates of nursing universities or schools that require at least three years of study. Filipinos must be graduates of four-year universities or nursing colleges.
All are required to take six months of Japanese-language training before working for care facilities.
Nurses must pass the annual exam within three years, while caregivers get four years. To be qualified to take the exam, caregiver applicants must have three years of on-the-job training in Japan, which means they have only one shot to pass the exam before they are asked to return to their countries.
What other options for qualifying are available?
Filipino candidates can undergo a caregiver-trainee program that doesn’t require them to pass the national exam.
To qualify for the program, one must be a graduate of a four-year-university in the Philippines.
After completing the six-month Japanese-language course, they are required to graduate from Japanese caregiver schools, a process that takes two to four years.
Under this program, candidates automatically become qualified caregivers upon graduation.
How much are the nurses and caregivers paid?
Both EPAs guarantee the Indonesians and Filipinos will be paid salaries equivalent to their Japanese counterparts.
On average, this would amount to between ¥150,000 and ¥160,000 a month, according to Hiroya Yaguchi, a manager of Japan International Corp. of Welfare Services, an affiliate of and the only placement organization appointed by the health ministry.
Because pay levels differ among hospitals and welfare facilities, there is no set pay standard, Yaguchi said.
Some people are receiving around ¥200,000 per month, while the lowest salary among the accepting facilities is around ¥120,000, according to JICWELS.
However, because living costs vary by region, salaries can’t be compared simply by their amount, Yaguchi noted.
Do the accepting institutions provide accommodations?
Some hospital and care facilities provide free dormitories for employees. There are also institutions that rent out living quarters, and in some cases employees receive housing subsidies, according to JICWELS.
Do candidates get any support to prepare for the national exam?
The accepting institutions are responsible for teaching the candidates Japanese and helping them to prepare for the national exam, but the extent of such support varies between facilities.
According to a health ministry survey in February, about 76 percent of employers said Japanese nurses are helping candidates to prepare for the national exam, and about 30 percent said they are hiring teachers from outside.
Why has the number of hospitals and welfare institutions accepting Indonesian and Filipino candidates sharply dropped for fiscal 2010?
Experts attribute the decline to the employers’ financial and manpower burdens.
Employers pay an initial cost of about ¥600,000 per candidate.
The cost includes part of the six-month Japanese training fees and living expenses, as well as commission and placement fees to pay for JICWELS and its counterparts in Indonesia and the Philippines.
In addition, employers must pay ¥21,000 per person per year to JICWELS as a management fee.
Also, in many cases Japanese staff are helping candidates to study for the national exam. This has become a burden for facilities already suffering manpower shortages.
What are the candidates’ main linguistic problems?
Experts say kanji and technical terms used in the national exam pose a high hurdle for Indonesians and Filipinos. The health ministry is considering using simpler terms in the nursing exam.
Is the government doing anything to improve the situation?
Starting in fiscal 2010, the government will pay a yearly ¥295,000 subsidy for each hospital that accepts one or more nurse candidates and ¥117,000 per candidate a year to cover training expenses, according to the labor ministry.
Facilities that accept caregivers will receive a ¥235,000 government subsidy per person each year.
Also, JICWELS is providing so-called e-learning at all the hospitals that have accepted nurse candidates. The Internet learning system provides exercise books and past national tests in Japanese, English and Indonesian.
In addition, JICWELS is distributing Japanese-language textbooks to hospitals with nurse candidates this fiscal year.
However, these support measures are currently available only to nursing candidates.
Fresh batch of Filipino nurses, caregivers to leave for Japan
A fresh batch of over 100 candidate nurses and caregivers will leave the Philippines for Japan this weekend to begin free language and skills training, officials said Saturday.
A total of 46 nurses and 70 caregivers, the third group of Filipino health workers to be sent to Japan, will depart Sunday to undergo a six-month Japanese language and cultural course before beginning work in Japanese health care institutions, said Jennifer Manalili, head of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.
Two other caregivers already fluent in Japanese will leave in June.
Manalili said the screening for this year’s batch of health workers under the bilateral program, now still in its second year, was “more rigorous to ensure an excellent and well prepared corps of candidates.”
Japanese Ambassador Makoto Katsura led a sendoff ceremony for the candidates on Friday, calling the opening up Japan to more Filipino nurses and care workers under the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement that came into effect in December 2008 a “testimony to the deepening relations” between the two countries.
He said the scheme will be instrumental in changing not just the lives of Filipino health workers “but the cooperative landscape of our two nations as well.”
The envoy told the candidates they will face various challenges as they work in an entirely different environment and interact with people with a different culture and language, but should “stay focused on the objectives you have set for yourself.”
“But do not let the unfamiliar faze you. Let it be your motivation to develop your skills and further improve yourselves in your respective fields,” he said.
Katsura extended his congratulations to Ever Lalin of the first batch of Filipino health workers for having cleared the language barrier and passed the Japanese Nursing Licensure Examination a mere 10 months after she arrived in Japan last year.
“I hope (Lalin’s) achievement will inspire all of you,” he said, urging them “to dedicate yourselves to your studies and remaining steadfast to your goals.”
The latest deployment of Filipino health workers comes amid a fresh Philippine proposal to conduct the six-month language and skills- training here in the Philippines so that they could remain close to their families.
The entry of Filipino nurses and caregivers to Japan is one of the main highlights of the bilateral economic partnership agreement concluded in 2006. Japan has also been accepting health workers from Indonesia.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9FIHS4G0&show_article=1
Chiba city’s native speaker English classes canceled after ALT contracts found illegal
This is just more reason to unionize. Stop illegal dispatching and claim higher wages and better benefits. Don’t be taken advantage of by these middlemen and these Boards of Education that want to hire you without paying you what they should and without affording you what is rightfully yours under Japanese law. This “cooling off period” is just a way to get around dispatch law, which clearly states that the dispatched should be directly hired after a clearly defined amount of time. The labor office’s guidelines do not trump the law, and if ALTs in Chiba stand up to this, there is a good chance that they can end this illegal dispatching, claiming more money and more rights for themselves under the law.
Solidarity,
Erich
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100417p2a00m0na019000c.html
KASHIWA, Chiba — Public schools here have been unable to start their native speaker-taught English classes this school year after the city’s board of education was accused of violating labor laws with foreign language teachers.
According to the Kashiwa Municipal Board of Education, it has been instructed by the local labor office to change its labor relationship with foreign assistant language teachers (ALTs) in the city’s elementary and junior high schools after it engaged in illegal employment practices.
The role of labor unions
Japanese workers mark this year’s May Day amid continued hard economic times and a harsh employment situation. This is an opportune time for serious discussion on the role labor unions can play to create a society where people can toil with hope for the future.
Japan’s unemployment rate in February remained stuck at relatively high 4.9 percent. (The government said Friday the jobless rate for March increased to 5 percent.)
In 2009, full-time workers grossed an average monthly wage of 294,500 yen ($3,130), including allowances, but excluding overtime pay and bonuses, according to the labor ministry. The figure represents the fourth consecutive year of decrease. Also, the margin of decrease, 1.5 percent from 2008, was the largest since 1976 when comparable data became available.
Bearing the brunt of the job crunch are non-regular workers and employees of small and midsize companies.
Many of the requests for advice received by the Labor Consultation Center, a nonprofit organization, come from people working for smaller companies. Non-regular workers accounted for nearly 30 percent of the inquiries. The center, which is supported by the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Tobu, received a record 600 or so requests for consultation in March. Thirty percent involved issues related to dismissal.
As globalization intensifies, many companies are locked in fierce competition with overseas rivals. Many full-time workers have been replaced by dispatched and other non-regular staff. While these people have weaker job security, they now account for one-third of the nation’s work force.
As a result, there is a strong sense of crisis within Rengo (The Japanese Trade Union Confederation), the nation’s largest labor umbrella organization.
At Rengo’s central May Day rally held Thursday in Tokyo, Rengo President Nobuaki Koga called for “solidarity among all workers.” The rally was attended by many non-regular workers. This is because the May Day meeting for such people, which until last year was held separately, has been integrated into the central event. Three years ago, Rengo set up a special center to help non-regular workers.
For this year’s shunto spring labor negotiations, Rengo has promised to do more to improve the working conditions of all working people. It has also begun talks with the temporary staffing service industry for better working conditions for temporary workers.
Rengo’s mainstream members are company-based unions that organize mainly full-time employees of large companies. These unions have been supporting the traditional Japanese system of lifetime employment and seniority-based pay scales. As these traditions have been crumbling, however, Rengo is under immense pressure to tackle issues related to the new reality.
Corporate activities are straddling national borders, while differences in employment conditions between regular and non-regular workers are growing in and outside the nation. Given this background, labor unions will keep losing their influences if they continue to remain focused on domestic problems without seeking international cooperation.
If Japanese labor unions intend to adjust to this age of globalization, they should, for instance, make policy proposals to spread the European-style principle of an “equal wage for work of equal value” to narrow the wage gap between regular and non-regular workers. At the same time, they need to cooperate more closely with their overseas counterparts.
A good start would be for the company-based unions belonging to Rengo to demand better treatment of non-regular workers during their negotiations with the management. Through their actions, they should demonstrate their commitment to improving the fortunes of fellow workers, despite differences in employment status.
Unions should be inspired by the achievement at Hiroshima Electric Railway Co., which has put all its non-regular workers with renewable one-year employment contracts on the regular payroll.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama attended Rengo’s May Day rally. The organization provided the largest power base of the Democratic Party of Japan in last year’s Lower House election.
But such endorsement by the nation’s leader is meaningless unless labor unions start speaking out and acting for the well-being of all workers.
First May Day in Post-LDP Japan: Workers Say, “Nothing Has Changed”
Over the last ten years, wages in Japan declined 10% even as the profits of big corporations doubled.
The average manufacturing worker saw a month’s pay disappear from his annual earning last year. Meanwhile, none of the Democratic Party’s electoral promises — the removal of the Futenma base, health care reform to relieve the hardship of the elderly, labor law reform to diminish the exploitation of contract workers hired thorough employment agencies, and so on — has been kept.
Wages see first rise in 22 months
Wages rose for the first time in 22 months in March after a pickup in manufacturing led to a sharp increase in overtime pay, the labor ministry said in a preliminary report released Friday.
Workers at companies with five employees or more earned ¥275,637 a month on average, with overtime and other nonscheduled pay gaining 11.7 percent to ¥18,204, the ministry said.
Their scheduled pay, however, shrank 0.2 percent to ¥245,503 on average, marking the 20th consecutive monthly decline.
“It still remains to be seen if overall cash wages will continue growing as they have,” a ministry official said.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said overtime rose 13.3 percent overall in March, led by a sharp 56.1 percent jump in the manufacturing sector.
Overall wages data for January, meanwhile, were revised to a decline of 0.2 percent from the preliminary 0.1 percent gain reported in early March.
Separately, the ministry said a total of 83,114 businesses had applied for government subsidies to maintain employment in March, up 3,378 from the previous month and the first rise in two months.
Although applications from big businesses dropped by 260, those from small businesses leaped by 3,638, it said.
Japan Mar Average Wages +0.8% Y/Y, 1st Rise In 22 Months
The average monthly total cash earnings per regular employee in Japan rose by a preliminary 0.8% year-over-year to Y275,637 in March, posting the first y/y rise in 22 months, data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare released on Friday showed.
It followed a 0.6% fall in February, when the pace of the y/y drop accelerated from -0.2% in January, because the delayed year-end bonus payment included in the January data fell out of the calculation in February.
March’s rise in the average wage was the first since +0.2% in May 2008.
The latest data also showed other improvement in the wage situation: overtime pay rose for the third month in a row, pushing up overall compensation, although the “base wage” — the key indicator for a recovery — still showed a slight drop from the year-earlier level.
Another indicator of a gradual improvement in the labor market was the number of regular employees, which posted the second straight year-on-year rise in March after showing the first gain in 10 months in February.
Overtime pay in March surged 11.7% year-on-year after +8.1% in February, aided by a jump in overtime hours worked at factories (payback for the plunge in early 2009). January’s 2.4% gain in overtime pay was the first y/y gain in 18 months.
Overtime hours worked and overtime pay hit bottom in March last year, which means they will show year-on-year growth for the next several months.
In inflation adjusted terms, the average total wage rose a preliminary 2.1% y/y in March after rising 0.6% in February.
This was the third straight y/y gain, with real wages improving gradually from the record drop of 5.2% posted in June last year.
Overtime hours worked in the manufacturing sector posted the fourth straight year-on-year rise in March, surging by another record increase of 56.1%, surpassing the previous record growth of 54.6% hit in February 2010 and recovering steadily from the record drop of 48.9% in March 2009.
Moreover, overtime hours at factories rose 0.8% month-on-month on a seasonally adjusted basis, showing the 12th straight m/m gain.
Overtime hours have been recovering fast since October 2009, led by the automobile and electronics sectors. This has pushed up the level of overtime pay.
Total overtime hours worked for all industries rose by a fresh record of +13.3% y/y in March, topping the previous record gain of +11.4% marked in the previous month. January’s +4.4% was the first year-on-year rise in 18 months.
Total hours worked for all industries continued to improve in March, up by 3.2%, after rising 0.6% in February. The 0.4% rise in January was the first y/y gain in 18 months.
Three years of steady job creation until April 2009 were replaced by job losses or flat employment levels through the end of last year, but the latest data indicate a recovery in the labor market.
The number of regular workers rose by 0.2% in March after rising at the same pace in February. The gain in February was the first y/y gain in 10 months since +0.3% in April 2009.
Cash earnings include overtime and bonuses. Regular employees are workers on permanent payrolls as well as those with part-time status.
Average “base” salaries, or scheduled cash earnings, at surveyed companies that employ five or more people fell 0.2% y/y in March vs. -1.0% in February, posting the 20th straight y/y drop, but the pace of decline has decelerated gradually.
Bonus and other special cash earnings, which tend to fluctuate sharply, rose 11.2% y/y in March vs. -26.1% in February.
Japan Spending, Wages Rise as Prices Slump 13th Month
Japan’s household spending, wages and job openings increased, while consumer prices tumbled for a 13th straight month, signaling a sustained recovery that’s still not strong enough to end deflation.
Wages advanced 0.8 percent, the first increase in 22 months, the Labor Ministry said.
Finance Minister Naoto Kan said today that the central bank may forecast deflation will end next fiscal year by predicting consumer prices will either increase or be unchanged. Currently the board sees a 0.2 percent decline for the year ending March 2012 and a 0.5 percent drop in the current year.
Kan last week last week called for price gains of as much as 2 percent. The ruling Democratic Party of Japan this month said it may include an inflation target in its platform for a July upper house election.
The BOJ will face “mounting pressure as the election approaches,” said Hiroaki Muto, a senior economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “For politicians, it’s easy to blame the central bank for lingering deflation and stagnant economic growth, and by doing that they can show the public they’re taking some action.”
All shuttered Geos schools to reopen for lessons in May
G.communication Co., which has taken over collapsed English conversation school operator Geos Corp., plans to resume lessons at all Geos schools by the end of May, the company president said.
This means lessons will resume soon at 18 of the 230 Geos schools that were closed for falling behind in their rent payments and for other reasons as of Wednesday.
In an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun, G.communication President Hideo Sugimoto said he hopes to return Geos to the black within a year.
“I want to record a profit in a year from now, although there still are costs that may materialize later,” he said.
G.communication also took over the Nova English conversation school when it went belly-up in 2007, but Sugimoto plans to maintain both brands.
“Geos schools have Japanese teachers and beginners may find it easier to take lessons there, whereas all Nova teachers are native speakers. Each has its own advantages and devotees,” he said.
The firm plans to maintain, for the time being, the 230 Geos schools it took over.
If some schools have difficulty resuming lessons, G.communication will help them out by renting rooms in neighboring buildings and taking other measures, Sugimoto said.
G.com has more room for ex-Geos teachers
G.communication Co. will hire some teachers from schools that it isn’t taking over from defunct Geos Corp. because it is currently experiencing a manpower shortage, G.communication President Hideo Sugimoto told The Japan Times on Wednesday.
“Some teachers left (the Geos schools) we took over because they weren’t getting paid,” Sugimoto said in an interview in G.communication’s Tokyo office.
Sugimoto said he doesn’t know how many teachers his company will hire from the Geos schools that will be shut down. G.communication has already said it will keep all of the employees at Geos schools it is taking over.
Nagoya-based G.communication runs language conversation schools, cram schools and restaurants.
Geos will close 99 English-language schools that employ 483 teachers and staff, while G.communication will take over 230 schools that employ 1,059. The company reopened 201 Geos schools last Friday, just three days after Geos filed for bankruptcy with the Tokyo District Court.
It will reopen the remaining 29 as soon as landlords of the branches sign rent contracts, Sugimoto said.
Former Geos employees will first enter work contracts with G.education, an education arm of G.communication, for three months, as had been the style with Geos, and then will sign a contract based on G.education’s style of employment, in which popular teachers get to teach more hours and are paid more, Sugimoto said.
Sugimoto also stressed that the chaos at the time of the failure of Nova Corp., another major language school chain, will not be repeated because of his company’s speedy rescue of Geos. G.communication took over operations of some Nova schools in November 2007.
“People may be worried because of the experience with Nova. In Nova’s case, we took over some of their schools awhile after the company went bankrupt and we had to start in a situation where more than 1,000 teachers didn’t have places to work,” Sugimoto said.
“This time, we raised our hand (to rescue Geos) at an early time,” he said. “If it was a week later, it would have been more chaotic.”
He also said he hadn’t been intending to expand in the language education business, and this move was just the result of salvaging a failed company.
He is also confident of making the former Geos schools profitable in a year, saying G.education will offer better services, such as convenient lesson-booking methods, than rival firms.
“The (English conversation school) market may be shrinking, but there are needs and we will meet customers’ needs,” he said.
At Nova schools, the teacher-to-student ratio is 1-to-3.5, which is “just right,” he said. He will aim to achieve that for Geos schools, whose current ratio is 1-to-2.6, he said.
Geos’ bankruptcy is believed to be tied to its persistent’s attempts at expansion, flying in the face of industry figures that showed the English-teaching market was shrinking amid the economic slump.
According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the monthly number of students enrolled at foreign-language conversation schools plunged from 826,858 in February 2006 to 335,604 in February this year. The corresponding monthly sales figures for the industry over the same period fell from ¥17.2 billion to ¥5.7 billion.