The government estimates a maximum of 345,150 foreign workers will be accepted over the five years beginning in fiscal 2019.
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Japan’s new government outlines on the expanded intake of foreign workers to begin next April emphasizes support for foreign residents’ livelihoods, such as by providing multilingual driver’s license written tests nationwide and dispatching medical interpreters to hospitals also in non-urban areas, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
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The government compiled the outlines to help Japanese people better coexist with foreign people.
The government plans to formalize the outlines at the end of this year after deliberating their contents with the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito.
The establishment of new residence statuses — the pillar of a bill to revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law enacted at a recent extraordinary Diet session — will bring about the expanded intake of foreign laborers. Foreign workers will be granted a residence status commensurate with their work skills, with workers to be hired in designated industries, including some that only require basic skills.
There are two categories of residence status. Category 1 applies to workers in professions requiring relatively simple skills and allows them to live in Japan for up to five years. Category 2 applies to highly skilled workers and can lead to permanent residency in Japan. The new statuses will take effect next April.
The government estimates a maximum of 345,150 foreign workers will be accepted over the five years beginning in fiscal 2019.
Written driver’s license tests are currently offered in such languages as Portuguese and Vietnamese in some localities, in addition to English and Chinese. In anticipation of the influx of foreign workers, mainly from Southeast Asian countries, the government will expand multilingual services nationwide.
To accommodate hospital visits by foreign people, the government will dispatch medical interpreters also to hospitals in non-urban areas that suffer serious labor shortages, and provide language interpretation services over the phone, among other measures.
The government will also help foreign people rent accommodations by creating a system that registers rental properties available to foreign residents and provides information on such properties.
A Justice Ministry survey discovered that about 40 percent of rental requests made by foreign residents in Japan are rejected because the properties do not accept foreigners.
Should foreign workers residing in Japan under the new system lose their jobs, they will be allowed to find new positions on the condition that they do the same type of work.
The government will support foreign workers’ employment by increasing multilingual consultation services at Hello Work job placement offices and through multilingual work-related consultation hotlines.
In addition, the government is close to finalizing outlines of specific operational policies for each of the industries covered by the system.
According to the outlines, foreign workers will be required to attain Japanese-language proficiency equivalent to the N4 level of the Japanese language proficiency test, the second-lowest of the test’s five levels. N4 requires understanding of short sentences on matters related to daily life, such as shopping and the rules for disposing garbage.
The government also plans to start a new standardized Japanese-proficiency test. Foreign nationals’ Japanese abilities will be measured using either the JLPT or the new test.
The operational policies stipulate that in principle, foreign workers will be hired directly by businesses. However, workers may be dispatched to other operators in industries where need for labor differs by season, such as agriculture and fishing.