Economy Migrant workers heading to South Korea instead of Japan

Japan loses the battle for overseas labourers:

Despite a record-high foreign resident population, Japan is grappling with a severe labour shortage. The nation struggles to attract blue-collar workers overseas, even after extending job offers. A stark example of this challenge is unfolding in Hiroshima. Five out of ten Indonesian workers guaranteed positions at local shipbuilding and welding companies rejected the offers in favour of higher-paying jobs in South Korea.

A job placement agent said they had offered an hourly wage of 1,200 yen ($8), but South Korea offered 1,700 yen. They added that with such a significant wage gap, they knew they couldn't compete. This unprecedented situation has left recruitment agencies scrambling to fill vacancies before work commences in August. The agent expressed concern that this trend might become the new normal as South Korea's shipbuilding industry aggressively recruits workers from across Asia. The challenges Japanese companies face are highlighted by the Innoshima Island Industrial Park in Hiroshima Prefecture. While nearly 700 people work there, including around 270 foreigners, the park heavily relies on Indonesian labour, accounting for almost 100 of the foreign workforce.

The driving force behind South Korea's recruiting blitz is heightened alarm over a population in free fall. This has been a pressing social issue since the 2000s, as the nation's fertility rate is among the lowest in the world and has one of the fastest rates of decline. In 2023, South Korea's birthrate fell to .72, making Japan's record low of 1.2 desirable by comparison. Faced with this existential threat, it is currently trying to hire legions of "unskilled" migrant workers, primarily from Southeast Asia, to fill a void in shipbuilding and other industries. This year's worker quota for the government's Employment Permit System, established in 2004, is 165,000. This is almost on par with the number of technical trainees in Japan. South Korea's population is also roughly half of Japan's 123 million, and the quota has maintained an upward trend, from 70,000 in 2022 to 120,000 in 2023.

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$8 an hour? Do Japanese labourers work for the same pay? How is this not extortion.

Japanese themselves work for low wages compared to Europe or the US. Looking at my job there is an opening in Tokyo for around 43% of what I make in the US. Misawa base needs someone with my background with typical US wages but it is only a 6 month contract. Keep in mind many things are cheaper there if you live your life like a Japanese inflation has been less so quality of life is OK. If your goal is to move to Japan to save money then go back to your country Japan may not be a good idea. 30 years ago I heard some from Austrailia made more as an ALT than they would in an Australian company as a new grad so in the past Japan was a good place to make money and leave, not now IMHO.

salyavin said:

Japanese themselves work for low wages compared to Europe or the US. Looking at my job there is an opening in Tokyo for around 43% of what I make in the US. Misawa base needs someone with my background with typical US wages but it is only a 6 month contract. Keep in mind many things are cheaper there if you live your life like a Japanese inflation has been less so quality of life is OK. If your goal is to move to Japan to save money then go back to your country Japan may not be a good idea. 30 years ago I heard some from Austrailia made more as an ALT than they would in an Australian company as a new grad so in the past Japan was a good place to make money and leave, not now IMHO.

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How much are you taxed of those $8? I agree you can manage if you live sensibly and perhaps outside the cities, too, but it just seems so little. There's transport, rent, food, childcare, etc that you have to pay out of those $8.
And yes, your example rings true; I have known people in the past who spent a number of years in Japan working as an ALT with quite favourable wages. This was some years back though.

These days seem to be over:

dracuella said:

$8 an hour? Do Japanese labourers work for the same pay? How is this not extortion.

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Unfortunately they often do.

In the scramble for foreign workers, both Japan and Taiwan are losing out to South Korea:


South Korea has increased the annual cap for its Employment Permit System (EPS) to compete with neighbouring Japan and Taiwan, allowing more low-skilled foreign workers to enter the country. Additionally, the government is expanding the program to include workers in various industries, such as forestry, aquaculture, and hospitality. South Korea is also opening its doors to international students, entrepreneurs, and highly skilled professionals. This move aims to attract diverse global talent and boost its economy. According to Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting, the average pay for low-skilled foreign workers in South Korea is significantly higher than in Japan and Taiwan, making it an even more attractive destination for those seeking employment.

South Korea opened a training centre in August for the shipbuilding industry on the Indonesian island of Java. Trainees there receive 340 hours of instruction in welding techniques, 40 hours of safety training and 100 hours of Korean language lessons to prepare them to start working for South Korean shipbuilders immediately. [...] Meanwhile, in September, the city of Seoul designated 100 qualified Filipino domestic workers as "housekeeping managers," who will help single-parent and dual-income households with domestic tasks to ease their burden. The program, meant to help lift South Korea's falling birth rate, is slated to include workers from other countries. South Korea's population grew for the first time in three years to 51.77 million in 2023, government data shows, largely on a 10.4% jump in foreign residents to 1.93 million.

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According to the government's statistics bureau, foreign nationals will constitute 5.7% of South Korea's population in 2042, up from 3.2% in 2022. The number of individuals who are foreign nationals themselves or are children of foreign nationals is expected to double to 4.04 million in 2042.


Paywall alert:

dracuella said:

$8 an hour? Do Japanese labourers work for the same pay? How is this not extortion.

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In addition to some labourers there is low pay for retired people
"Tasks are paid at different rates, and those vary around the country, but assistance with household chores typically earns a Silver Jinzai worker 870 yen (€6.70, $7.80)"
At one time someone told me elderly organizing bicycles at a station were paid like 100 yen an hour but that was some time ago so maybe a lot more now (500?)

dracuella said:

How much are you taxed of those $8? I agree you can manage if you live sensibly and perhaps outside the cities, too, but it just seems so little. There's transport, rent, food, childcare, etc that you have to pay out of those $8.
And yes, your example rings true; I have known people in the past who spent a number of years in Japan working as an ALT with quite favourable wages. This was some years back though.

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Adding to my answer on low pay, a Japanese company, backed by some well-known large Japanese publishers, recently approached me to do some editing work. The pay was half of what I get for similar jobs from British publishers, and editing isn't a particularly highly paid job anyway. Although I've found Japanese individuals to mainly be generous, there is a real stinginess among Japanese employers that I think is partly to blame for the labour shortage and Japan's stagnation. It does not surprise me at all that migrants are voting with their feet.

Lothor said:

Adding to my answer on low pay, a Japanese company, backed by some well-known large Japanese publishers, recently approached me to do some editing work. The pay was half of what I get for similar jobs from British publishers, and editing isn't a particularly highly paid job anyway. Although I've found Japanese individuals to mainly be generous, there is a real stinginess among Japanese employers that I think is partly to blame for the labour shortage and Japan's stagnation. It does not surprise me at all that migrants are voting with their feet.

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Half? That sounds incredibly exploitative! Were you able to negotiate with them or did you just turn it down?

Also, is this a new phenomenon or has it always been this way, that many have to work more hours to make ends meet? Where is the money going, stock holders or company coffers, do we know? I've always known about the wage gap between men and women but I'm somewhat surprised to hear that there are working poor in Japan, and not just among migrant workers.

dracuella said:

Half? That sounds incredibly exploitative! Were you able to negotiate with them or did you just turn it down?

Also, is this a new phenomenon or has it always been this way, that many have to work more hours to make ends meet? Where is the money going, stock holders or company coffers, do we know? I've always known about the wage gap between men and women but I'm somewhat surprised to hear that there are working poor in Japan, and not just among migrant workers.

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There didn't seem to be any room to negotiate, though the (American) manager did sympathise. I told him what I'm telling you - that I was too busy with other better-paid work, but he can get in contact with me in a couple of weeks, and if I don't have other work, I'll probably do it.

To try and avoid the feast and famine of freelancing, it's useful to have a few sources of work that you can tap into if you don't have any big-ticket jobs to work on (in my case, books), even if they don't pay well, so this company could be useful. But it will never be more than a fallback job.

By the way, I'm not completely mercenary about my job - I quite often take low-paying editing jobs if, say, it's a small, independent publisher of a worthy book that is not going to sell many copies but should definitely be published. I even sometimes work for free if it's for a cause I believe in.

Your second question - where is the money going? I wish I knew! The answer seems less obvious than in countries such as the UK - pay at the director level also seems much lower in Japan. I've heard that the big Japanese companies are very profitable and are sitting on huge assets that they don't do much with, but I don't know how true this is.

Lothor said:

By the way, I'm not completely mercenary about my job - I quite often take low-paying editing jobs if, say, it's a small, independent publisher of a worthy book that is not going to sell many copies but should definitely be published. I even sometimes work for free if it's for a cause I believe in

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Ah, so the patron saint of indie books is named Lothor, I never knew xD
All jest aside, that's very admirable - I wish I could do something similar in my line of work. Alas, all I can do is help out my father's pensioner friends with their PCs, TV boxes losing channels, or smartphones that are too smart for the elderly xD

Average salary, wages and hourly wages in Tokyo

1.Tokyo average hourly wage for part-time, temporary and temporary workers: 1,476 yen = $9.89
2.Tokyo average monthly salary for full-time employees: 257,213 yen = $1,723.33

According to the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training:
The changes of annual working hours in Japan decrease below from the peak of the 1960s of 2400 hours for 1,800 hours in 2022.
One full-time worker mean annual total actual hours worked number 1951 through 2022 yearly average

The current situation of the Japanese working poor.
There is not a clear definition in Japan, but it is the standard that is a standard of the welfare having one "monthly income 170,000 yen or less" "less than yearly income 2 million yen".


According to the data of "the private salary actual situation statistics investigation for harmony two years to give it an order to start" that National Tax Agency arranged, the Japanese average yearly income is 4.3 million yen, of about 20% as for the people less than yearly income 2 million yen of the whole turned out.

As for the man who is less than yearly income 2 million yen, 10.6%, a woman are 38.6% when they see it according to men and women. It becomes 22.2% of the whole when I put men and women together, and Japanese one of 4-5 people will correspond to the working poor who is less than yearly income 2 million yen.


The cause that a working poor increased to.
1.Irregular employment increased.
2.A burden of care and the child care.
3.High prices of commodities influence it
4.Sense of values diversifies

Record-high internal reserves, 600 trillion yen of the Japanese company for 12 consecutive years.
According to the corporate statistics investigation that Ministry of Finance announced 2nd, "the internal reserves" (earned surpluses) that deducted a tax from the profit of the company and allotment became 600.9857 trillion yen at the end of 2023. It is naive to have exceeded 600 trillion yen. I updated a record high against a backdrop of brisk corporate earnings for 12 consecutive years. On the other hand, capital spending and the growth of personnel expenses are small, and the inflection of the internal reserves that piled up becomes the problem toward good circulation of the economy.

Hiroyuki Nagashima said:

As for the man who is less than yearly income 2 million yen, 10.6%, a woman are 38.6% when they see it according to men and women. It becomes 22.2% of the whole when I put men and women together, and Japanese one of 4-5 people will correspond to the working poor who is less than yearly income 2 million yen.

The cause that a working poor increased to.
1.Irregular employment increased.
2.A burden of care and the child care.
3.High prices of commodities influence it
4.Sense of values diversifies

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That is an awful lot of people earning below 2 million yen - and 2 million yen really isn't a lot of money. There must be a number of single parents among those. Or those who have to care for elderly parents. They must all be struggling to make ends met.