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Will they allow me to work?

supertrex

後輩
20 Mar 2008
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Im a US citizen married to a Japanese resident. She dont want to stay here in the US. but my Job is currently here. will they allow me to work in medical field in Japan? I have a US licsence for Xray and MRI. or Japan have some strict guidlines for this?
 
chances are you will need to get certified in Japan in order to work in the medical field, which would require a firm command of the language, including specialized terms particular to your field. If she is so anxious to go back, perhaps she should be doing this sort of research as well? You haven't specified whether you are proficient in Japanese, but since you're asking here, I'll guess that you'd have a harder time than her looking through certification literature in Japanese.
 
What people have written above is correct if you want to work in the Japanese sector. If you don't care about working on a U.S. military base, though, it may be a different matter. Check into getting SOFA status. You will also not have to be fingerprinted every time you enter Japan.
 
Thanks for the fast reply. I can speak Basic Japanese but cannot read. I am currently taking advance Language proficiency. Working under SOFA as ive research... its under military status, Im not sure if I wanna work under military since I know they pay less.
( some of my co workers are ex military medical professional )

Mr Hiroyoki, does the site you include here have an english version? I was talking to my prof, from my Japanese class. she said it is possible to work but need to have a sponsor for certain medical establishment.

just looking for more opinion to see if some people from the States already dealt with this situatuion.
 
Look, SOFA is "under military status". Yes. They hire civilian contractors to do many things. You wouldn't be considered military.

As for wages, you have no choice. You can't read Japanese and you speak it barely at all. Would you imagine anyone with such weak English language abilities being hired to do what you are planning if they wanted work in the USA? No! How are you going to communicate with doctors, nurses, and patients, let alone read instructions on equipment or read medical forms? You can't, and you are unlikely to reach that level in the near future. (Such ability will also be needed to pass the licensing exams.) (SOFA Medical Technologists make $40,000-61,000. Don't know how that compares to what you make now.) USAJOBS - The Federal Government's official employment site

Get used to the idea that you are either going to have to do your current line of work under SOFA, or you will have to do something else (like teach English, which is pretty much all you are qualified to do).

What does your "prof" know about immigration requirements? If you are married to a Japanese, you are eligible to get a spouse visa, which permits almost any kind of work here, but you must be qualified! You are not. Your spouse serves as your visa sponsor in that situation, not your employer.

I don't know how the military deals with hiring people with spouse visas. You probably cannot have that and SOFA, but I urge you to contact them and find out, or at least find out which is the better way for you to go.
 
They require you to give up your spouse visa and go onto a SOFA-sponsored visa. Or such was the case the sole time I looked into applying for a position.

Glenski is absolutely right on the language issue being the killing factor here.
 
Glenski thanks for that site! btw how many Americans here do actually work in Japan? and what kind of Jobs do they do? anyone knows? mostly english teacher?
 
All foreigners in Japan make up only a little more than 2% of the population. As of 2005, there were about 50,000 registered Americans living in Japan. The number has been rising, and I don't know the current figures. That's registered Americans which will include non-working spouses and children, and it doesn't include the military (Wikipedia says about 33,000 military and 5,500 American civilians employed on bases, as of 2007).

Aside from the military and civilians on base, probably the most common job for Americans (and any English-speaking foreigner) is English teacher. This could cover a wide range of possibilities:
JET Programme ALT, CIR, or SEA
K-12 teacher, full-time or part-time (private or public school)
eikaiwa
university, college, junior college, tech school, etc.
one's own business
etc.

The reason being, aside from university jobs, becoming an English teacher requires so little in the way of qualifications.

Japan doesn't really keep records of this sort of statistic.
 
I hear about this so often: one spouse wants to be in Japan and the other one doesn't. Considering family law in Japan, I hope you don't have any children at this point . . .

I think everything that Glenski said is right. Your best option might be teaching English, until you can move into a field that you really want to be in.
 
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