The Maebashi-based firm, one of the nation’s largest consumer electronics retailers, is suspected of ordering the salespeople to confirm and promise to follow 35 instructions on a checklist at the Labi 1 Namba outlet in Naniwa Ward, Osaka.
The labor bureau will clarify the circumstances surrounding the dispatched salespeople.
The outlet has not revealed how many salespeople were dispatched by the electronics manufacturers. However, The Yomiuri Shimbun discovered at the end of last year that at least 60 dispatched salespeople were working at the outlet at the time.
According to sources, the outlet gave each of the salespeople a checklist on their first day of work, including instructions concerning dress code and breaks. The salespeople were also required to brush up on other popular home electric appliances manufactured by rival firms.
The dispatched salespeople were asked to confirm each item on the list by checking it off. They then had to sign their names and put their seals on a printed statement agreeing to follow the instructions and work to the best of their ability.
The labor bureau felt the checklist was evidence the outlet supervised salespeople who were not contracted to the firm.
Government to propose legal ban on age limits in recruitment
The ruling coalition parties agreed Wednesday to call for a legal ban on age limits when companies recruit workers, member lawmakers said. The proposed ban is aimed at helping young people and retired workers find jobs, they said.
The elimination of age restrictions in recruitment is currently a nonbinding target for companies under the existing law. But many firms set age brackets for eligible job applicants when they put up help-wanted advertisements, making it difficult for people in their late 20s or older to find full-time jobs. The practice is expected to gravely affect the labor market as the massive mandatory retirement of baby-boom workers begins this year, prompting many of them to seek new employment.
Election puts overtime-pay exclusion on hold
Wary of an upcoming election, the ruling bloc is backing off on a highly contentious bill that would exclude certain white-collar workers from overtime pay.
But debate over the issue, which unions fiercely oppose, will resurface because the government’s retreat is widely believed a mere postponement until after the July Upper House election.
Certain white-collar workers would be excluded from legal work-hour restrictions under the Labor Standards Law, which limits work hours to eight hours a day and 40 hours a week and obliges employers to pay for overtime.
The government says the proposed system is modeled after one in the United States with the same name.
Unions and opposition parties branded the proposal the “elimination of overtime pay bill,” provoking fear among salaried workers that they would receive no extra pay even if they have to continue working long hours. This worried lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito whose eyes are on the summer Upper House election.
Unions are against the system itself because changes to the hour limitations would mean abolishing the most basic protection for employees.
They argue that without changing Japan’s notorious penchant for requiring long work hours, the new system would only make matters worse and workers would get less pay.
Japan Mulls Importing Foreign Workers
The prospect of a shrinking, rapidly aging population is spurring a debate about whether Japan is so insular that it once barred foreigners from its shores for two centuries should open up to more foreign workers.
Japan’s 2 million registered foreigners, 1.57 percent of the population, are at a record high but minuscule compared with the United States’ 12 percent.
For the government to increase those numbers would be groundbreaking in a nation conditioned to see itself as racially homogeneous and culturally unique, and to equate “foreign” with crime and social disorder.
“I think we are entering an age of revolutionary change,” said Hidenori Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute and a vocal proponent of accepting more outsiders. “Our views on how the nation should be and our views on foreigners need to change in order to maintain our society.”
Schooling is compulsory in Japan until age 16, but only for citizens. So foreign kids can skip school with impunity. Arrangements such as special Japanese classes for newcomers are ad hoc and understaffed. Many of the foreigners [are illegally denied] pensions or the same health benefits as Japanese workers because they’re hired through special [and for the most part, illegal] job brokers.
The population is 127 million and is forecast to plunge to about 100 million by 2050, when more than a third of Japanese will be 65 or older and drawing health and pension benefits. Less than half of Japanese, meanwhile, will be of working age of 15-64.
Fearing disastrous drops in consumption, production and tax revenues, Japan’s bureaucrats are scrambling to boost the birthrate and get more women and elderly into the work force. But many Japanese are realizing that foreigners must be part of the equation.
Few support throwing the doors wide open. Instead, they want educated workers, engineers, educators and health professionals, preferably arriving with Japanese-language skills.
Corporate leaders are prime movers. “We can create high-value and unique services and products by combining the diversity of foreigners and the teamwork of the Japanese,” said Hiroshi Tachibana, senior managing director of Japan’s top business federation, Keidanren.
But government officials are so touchy about the subject that they deny the country has an immigration policy at all, and insist on speaking of “foreign workers” rather than “immigrants” who might one day demand citizenship.
Immigration in Japan does not have a happy history. The first wave in modern times came a century or more ago from conquered lands in Korea and China, sometimes in chains as slaves. Those still here the largest group being Koreans and their descendants still suffer discrimination and isolation.
Even today, the policy seems to lack coherent patterns. In 2005, for instance, about 5,000 engineers entered Japan, along with 100,000 “entertainers” _ even after that vaguely defined status was tightened because it was being used as a cover for the sex trade and human trafficking.
“Everybody, I think, is agreed on one thing: We want to attract the `good’ foreigners, and keep out the `bad’ ones,” said Hisashi Toshioka, of the Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/20/ap/world/mainD8MP5VG00.shtml
Mixed results with foreign influx: Japan is changing, but system, attitudes need to keep pace
The birthrate in Japan is at an all-time low, far below the rate needed to maintain the population. The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research has predicted that Japan could lose 20 million people by 2050. If that isn’t bad enough, Japan also has one of the most rapidly graying populations in the world. Four out of 10 Japanese could be over the age of 60 by the middle of this century, and there may not be enough people of working age to support them. Many people argue that mass immigration is the only way to defuse a ticking demographic time-bomb.
Unlike in most other developed nations, the number of foreign residents in Japan is extremely low — just over 2 million people or 1.56 percent of the population. By way of comparison, in the U.S., foreign-born residents make up almost 12 percent of the population, and in the U.K. around 8 percent.
[Tokyo suburb] Nishi-Kasai’s Indian immigrants…tell of difficulties settling in Japan. One fundamental issue is language, as many IT workers have limited Japanese skills. While perhaps not an obstacle in their working life, it can cause problems outside the office.
“The doctors here are not that fluent in English,” says Suhas Sambhus, an IT specialist. Another problem is housing. High deposits and nonreturnable “key-money” costs are daunting for new arrivals. Many landlords are also reluctant to lease to foreigners. Consequently, most of Nishi-Kasai’s Indian population lives in large, government-owned apartment complexes.
But perhaps most fundamental of all is the issue of social acceptance. Manish Prabhune puts it bluntly: “There are only two nationalities in Japan: Japanese and foreigner.” Long-term residents of various nationalities struggle to find a place in Japan. Relatively few of Nishi-Kasai’s community choose to stay long-term.
Detention centers lack docs / 2 facilities holding visa violators not offering proper medical care
Two state-run immigration centers where foreigners who have violated the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law are detained until they are deported failed to have a full-time doctor on staff despite ministerial requirements, it has been learned.
As adequate medical treatment and health care for the detainees is stipulated in a Justice Ministry ordinance, a full-time doctor is required to be stationed at the centers’ clinics.
However, the West Japan Immigration Center in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, has not had a full-time doctor for about five months since the last doctor resigned on Aug. 1, according to the Immigration Bureau.
The Omura Immigration Center has not had a full-time doctor for about two years since a clinic chief dispatched from a local university resigned at the end of 2004.
Full-time doctors shoulder such responsibilities as preventing the spread of infectious diseases and instructing nurses and other staff.
Maintaining adequate medical and health services at detention facilities of any kind is also stipulated in the U.N. Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment adopted at the General Assembly in 1988. Therefore, the government may face criticism from abroad over the centers’ lack of full-time doctors.
Makoto Teranaka, secretary general of Amnesty International Japan said: “The central government hasn’t fulfilled its responsibility to ensure adequate medical services at the centers. It’s required to have a budget for two full-time in-house doctors at each facility.”
Japan salvages its older workers
Fears of a labour crunch and a deficit of skilled workers are growing in Japan as baby boomers start hitting the standard retirement age of 60 this year, in what Japanese media have dubbed the “2007 problem”.
A decline in numbers of young workers is exacerbating the concern as the population ages at an unprecedented pace.
Japan’s proportion of people older than 65 is already the world’s highest at 20 per cent of 127 million. The figure is heading for 40 per cent by 2055…
Hidemitsu Sano, head of staffing agency Fancl Staff, hopes to expand job placements for retirees, but says companies may turn to other sources of labour in the future.
“There are only four solutions to a labour shortage in Japan – the elderly, women, NEETs and foreigners,” he says. After that, it’s robots.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21004356-643,00.html
Foreign permanent residents on rise, filling gaps
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.
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