News Gunma town to open municipal jobs to foreign residents

[thomas]

Other municipalities will follow: nationality will be removed from the criteria for taking tests to become municipal staffers in Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, starting from fiscal 2025. The community will be the first in the prefecture to hire foreign-born residents for all lines of public service.

Foreigners represent around 20% of Oizumi's roughly 41,000 residents. As of the end of November, the town's foreign population stood at around 8,300, including many from Brazil, Peru and Vietnam. From the twice-annual tests, the municipality hires a total of around 10 to 15 people in seven fields including general office work, construction, public works and child care. Foreign residents will not be hired for management roles and will not be involved in the exercise of public authority through levying or collecting taxes and similar roles. The town's government is also reportedly considering having foreign staffers handle procedures for the foreign residents who visit the town hall, guardians who send their children to Japanese language classes at a local elementary or junior high school, and other similar people.

In the past three years, the tests, administered in Japanese, had pass rates of around 1:10 to 1:14.

Foreign residents to be eligible for regular jobs at east Japan town hall from FY2025 - The Mainichi

OTA, Gunma -- Nationality will be removed from the criteria for taking tests to become municipal staffers in Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, starting from f

mainichi.jp

 

[thomas]

Oizumi Town has recently stirred controversy by planning to eliminate the Japanese citizenship requirement for its municipal employees. The mayor, Murayama Toshiaki, revealed that the decision has sparked dozens of complaints: since the announcement last year, the town has received 74 complaints, comprising 23 phone calls, 54 emails, and one in-person visit. Interestingly, four of these correspondences supported the proposed change, which aims to remove the citizenship provision from the employment test starting in fiscal 2025.

The negative feedback has included the comments, "There are countries that have legalized spy activity," "Are you considering how this will affect nearby municipalities?" and "Japan is being taken over." Around 70% of the emails were from outside the prefecture. Gunma Gov. Yamamoto Ichita is also considering scrapping the Japanese nationality requirement for all types of its employees, and the move by Oizumi, where foreign nationals make up roughly 20% of the population, puts the town ahead of the curve.

'Spy activity': East Japan town's plan to hire noncitizens yields 74 objections - The Mainichi

OTA, Gunma -- An east Japan town's plan to remove the Japanese citizenship requirement for municipal employees has attracted dozens of complaints, its

mainichi.jp