Society Targeting Asian talent

While Japan is losing much of its attraction in the international job market, it is still popular with South and Southeast Asian students.

Kumon Takashi, a professor at the Institute for Asian Studies at Asia University and a visiting lecturer at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Public Policy, argues that it would be more effective for Japan to target students from South and Southeast Asia instead of focusing on Western talent.

In April, Japan launched two programs to attract more highly skilled foreign professionals, J-Find (Japan System for Future Creation Individual Visa) and J-SKIP (Japan System for Special Highly Skilled Professionals). J-Find, formally the Future Creator Human Resource System, targets those with degrees from top schools. Those who graduated within the last five years from a university ranked in the top 100 on at least two of three designated global lists can stay in the country with their family to look for work or start their businesses for up to two years.

According to Mr Kumon, it is unlikely to have a significant impact for the following reasons:

- Salaries:

According to a survey conducted late last year by the National Association of Colleges and Employers in the U.S., a fresh engineering graduate there can expect an average starting salary of $74,405. Those getting a bachelor's degree in business can get $62,069. Those salaries are more than double what such graduates would likely be able to get in Japan. And the graduates of the top programs targeted by J-Find would command even higher pay in the U.S.

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- Inaccessible employment system:

The Japanese employment system is also not that accessible for outsiders. In Japan, it is common for students to spend 12 to 18 months during the final two years of college hunting for a post-graduation job. This process can be difficult for newcomers to penetrate, even if they come directly to Japan.

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- Language barrier:

"Not many foreign students at top 100 universities can speak Japanese, so they will probably choose countries such as the U.K. that offer a similar policy and allows them to work in English," she added. "Also, the competition for Japan is fierce because the U.S. and many European countries offer higher salaries." As she suggested, foreigners who are not fluent in Japanese have often found it difficult to work at many Japanese companies.

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Many foreigners are interested in studying and working in Japan (230,000 last year), but 93% are from other Asian countries, many from ones that do not figure highly in the top 100 university rankings.

Nearly 90% of the highly skilled foreign professionals who were working in Japan as of June 2022 were from Asia. Almost half of this group arrived from other East Asian countries, with the rest mainly from Southeast or South Asia, according to Immigration Services Agency of Japan figures. Eight years earlier, Asians accounted for 79% of the total number of highly skilled foreign professionals in Japan. At that time, about 70% of those workers came from East Asia.

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And:

Japanese policymakers and industry leaders should get out of their current Western-oriented mindset and try to attract enthusiastic Asian graduates with high potential. Without foreign talent from around Asia, Japan's labor shortages are likely to continue to mount.

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J-Find: