Tokyo, 17 June, /AJMEDIA/
Rural Japan has been seeing the government’s new measure of allowing foreign trainees to change jobs within the same industry as a double-edged sword, with some businesses concerned about the potential outflow of workers to urban areas, while others consider it key to improving working conditions.
The Technical Intern Training Program, which has been in place since 1993, effectively forbids workers on the scheme from switching jobs in Japan, locking some into abusive environments that cause many to leave their workplaces.
Japan’s parliament on Friday enacted revised laws to replace the controversial foreign trainee program, which has been criticized as a cover for importing cheap labor. Japan seeks to ensure foreign workers will stay on longer in a bid to address an acute labor shortage in a rapidly greying society.
Under the new system, workers will be able to move after working in a job for one year provided their Japanese language and professional skills meet certain requirements.
The relaxation has caused concern among regional firms struggling with personnel shortages that they could lose staff to companies in urban areas.
One such workplace is a branch of Abecho, a marine product processing firm in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. The company has been hit hard by worsening labor shortages since the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake struck Ishinomaki and nearby areas.
Kyin Thein, a 27-year-old woman from Myanmar who came to Japan in 2022, works at the firm as a trainee. Political instability in her home country forced her to seek employment abroad to support her family.
She said she is now used to the work and finds it fun, describing the people around her as kind and helpful.
Factory head Kazuyoshi Hiratsuka praised the trainees, saying they are “fast learners who work very hard.”
The branch has been accepting trainees since 2014, offering them 943 yen an hour — higher than the prefecture’s minimum wage — when they start.
But with the business outlook growing harsher due to rising marine produce prices resulting from smaller catches and the cost of materials being pushed up by a weaker yen, the company says it cannot afford to pay its workers at a rate competitive with firms in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
Many of the company’s former trainees who have stayed in Japan sought out better-paid work outside Miyagi when they moved on to acquire Specified Skilled Worker No. 1 status, which grants them residency for up to five years.
Hiratsuka expressed concern that the program’s changes will produce the same trend of worker attrition.
“Pay discrepancies between the capital (and regional areas) are getting wider and wider. The government should think about subsidies or other ways to plug the gap,” he said.
Individuals with knowledge of the system say its limits on workers changing jobs have had a negative effect on the economy. One described it as a “drug” that has “fostered a society unable to extricate itself from low wages.”
But individuals can be limited to working in the same industry for up to two years if they are deemed to require further professional development provided that employers improve their situation at work, such as through pay rises, on the second year.
While the government initially planned to allow workers to switch jobs if they had been working for a year or more, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposed the two-year limit to ease concerns among rural communities over losing talent.
The limit sparked criticism in the Diet that making it easier to switch jobs under the scheme is impractical and “does not guarantee opportunities to change work.”
Kiyoto Tanno, a professor in labor sociology at Tokyo Metropolitan University, said that the “ability to choose your place of employment is a worker’s right, meaning controls on changing jobs must be removed.”
“By normalizing labor movement, companies will be encouraged to improve their offering and invest in provisions to secure talent, which will bring about better productivity across society,” he said.
© KYODO
