News Japan launching new visa for highly skilled professional foreign workers

The Japanese government will introduce a simplified system for granting highly skilled professional visas to foreign workers to attract overseas talent. The visa will introduce preferential treatment for those who meet certain conditions, such as having an annual income of 20 million JPY and a master's degree.

Under the government's current points-based system, points are allocated according to categories that include academic and employment backgrounds and annual income. But the move has been seen as overly complicated as the global race to acquire skilled workers heats up. Currently, applicants with points exceeding a certain level will be granted a five-year highly skilled professional visa. They can acquire a visa with an indefinite period of stay after three years. Highly skilled professional visas are granted for three types of activity -- advanced academic research, advanced specialized/technical activities and advanced business and management activities. While retaining the points-based system, the new measure will enable applicants conducting advanced academic research or advanced specialized/technical activities to obtain a five-year visa if they have a master's degree or higher and an annual income upwards of 20 million JPY or an employment record of 10 years or more and an annual income upwards of 20 million JPY. For those applying for advanced business and management activities, five-year visas will be granted if they have an employment record of five years or over and an annual income of 40 million JPY or more.

Click to expand...

This article is also on the Japan Today website, and the comments are absolutely scathing. One of them suggested that the government should come clean and call it a 'highly paid professional visa'!

Lothor said:

This article is also on the Japan Today website, and the comments are absolutely scathing. One of them suggested that the government should come clean and call it a 'highly paid professional visa'!

Click to expand...

It's a bit cynical, indeed. You could probably make much more elsewhere if you are talented enough to make 40m JPY annually in Japan. And forgive me for my sarcasm, but Japan doesn't need more corporate bozos to fill high-end condos in Hiroo and Azabujuban. The country needs nurses, caregivers, construction workers, agricultural workers, and craftspeople... and they barely make 5m JPY per annum.

And also fisherman.

It doesn't really make sense. I don't think those people were having trouble getting visas in the first place. So even if they want more highly paid corporate types and researchers -- and of course they do -- I don't see how this will move the needle.

thomas said:

The country needs nurses, caregivers, construction workers, agricultural workers, and craftspeople... and they barely make 5m JPY per annum.

Click to expand...

I thought robots were going to take over all those tasks. It sure seemed like that idea was being pushed back in 2009 or so.

Mikawa Ossan said:

I thought robots were going to take over all those tasks. It sure seemed like that idea was being pushed back in 2009 or so.

Click to expand...

I don't think the robot overlords servants progressed as far as people were thinking they would by this time.

thomas said:

It's a bit cynical, indeed. You could probably make much more elsewhere if you are talented enough to make 40m JPY annually in Japan. And forgive me for my sarcasm, but Japan doesn't need more corporate bozos to fill high-end condos in Hiroo and Azabujuban. The country needs nurses, caregivers, construction workers, agricultural workers, and craftspeople... and they barely make 5m JPY per annum.

Click to expand...

Seems more about collecting taxes from rich immigrants than filling the gaps in the working economy

nice gaijin said:

Seems more about collecting taxes from rich immigrants than filling the gaps in the working economy

Click to expand...

That was the intention in bringing in all those workers from Brazil, wasn't it? I'm referring to filling in the gaps in the working economy. I assume that program is still around?

Mikawa Ossan said:

That was the intention in bringing in all those workers from Brazil, wasn't it? I'm referring to filling in the gaps in the working economy. I assume that program is still around?

Click to expand...

There's a great book about the Brazilian diaspora called No One Home: Brazilian Selves Remade in Japan

It's been a while since I read it (it was part of a Japanese sociology course I took back in college), but as I recall, it wasn't so much a special program as it was a cohort of Brazilians of Japanese descent capitalizing on the fact that Japan's immigration laws are based on the concept of Jus Sanguinis, which make it easier for nikkei foreigners to come back to Japan, not quite as immigrants, but also not quite as citizens (they were also referred to as Dekasegi, literally "earning money away from home," a nod to their muddled identity and poor acceptance in Japan).

For the returnees in the 70's and 80's, it was an opportunity to earn more money as a factory worker in Japan than they could make as a professional in Brazil. For the Assen-gaisha that helped the Brazilians who didn't understand Japanese process their paperwork, it was a goldmine. For Japan, it was a chance to import cheap labor without all the trouble of processing actual worker visas; they were also under the mistaken assumption that just having Japanese blood would ensure the Brazilian-Japanese "returnees" would reintegrate better than "real foreigners." Although this proved to be very wrong there's still a considerable permanent Brazilian-Japanese population in Japan (roughly .2% of the entire population) and Japan has learned nothing regarding its attitude toward immigration. But the lesson wasn't lost on the Brazilians.

Maybe it was a special program of sorts after all... Apparently Japan tried another stab at recruitment in 2018 to attract more 4th generation Japanese-Brazilian workers from Saõ Paulo and it seems like it didn't go so well (attracting zero applicants): Japanese-Brazilians snub Tokyo's diaspora residency program