The government plans to require a minimum employment period of two years in certain industries before foreign workers can change jobs under a new system that will replace the Technical Intern Training Program.<\/p>\n
A proposal presented at an expert panel meeting on Sept. 17 said foreign workers would have to remain employed for two years before transferring to a different workplace by choice in eight designated sectors, compared with one year in the remaining nine other sectors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Industries that would have this requirement are\u00a0nursing care; industrial goods manufacturing; construction; shipbuilding and marine industry; automobile maintenance; food and beverage production; food service; and resource recycling.<\/p>\n
The rationale is that these fields call for a longer period for acquiring necessary skills.<\/p>\n
The Cabinet is expected to approve the plan by the end of the year following discussions at the expert panel.<\/p>\n
However, concerns have been raised that the two-year requirement could contradict the nation\u2019s labor legislation and fail to adequately protect the rights of international workers.<\/p>\n
Under interpretations of the Civil Code and other laws, contract employees are generally allowed to resign after working for more than one year.<\/p>\n
In January, Keizai Doyukai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives) called for a one-year employment period across all sectors, saying that inconsistencies with domestic labor laws could discourage foreign nationals from seeking employment in Japan.<\/p>\n
Japan plans to start the training and employment program, which aims to train foreign nationals and encourage them to work in the country for extended periods, in April 2027 as a replacement for the much-criticized Technical Intern Training Program.<\/p>\n
Under the existing program, foreign interns are, in principle, not allowed to change jobs for three years, leading many to abscond from abusive working conditions.<\/p>\n
To address the problem, the new program will allow for workplace transfers in cases of \u201cunavoidable circumstances,\u201d such as violence or harassment.<\/p>\n
In addition, workers can transfer at their own request if certain conditions are met.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the eight sectors that require two years\u2019\u00a0of employment before transfers, employees are to\u00a0review working conditions, such as providing pay increases, from the second year of employment onward.<\/p>\n
Under the government proposal, the remaining nine sectors, including accommodations, agriculture, fisheries and forestry, will require only one year of employment before allowing transfers.<\/p>\n
The workplace transfer system is a key pillar of the training and employment program to safeguard the rights of foreign workers.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s expert panel initially proposed a uniform one-year period for all sectors, seeking to guarantee foreign workers the same rights as Japanese contract employees.<\/p>\n
However, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and small regional businesses argued that allowing transfers after a short period would lead to a talent drain to urban centers.<\/p>\n
As a result, the proposal was revised to allow sector-specific minimum employment periods ranging from one to two years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government plans to require a minimum employment period of two years in certain industries before foreign workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[102008,78971,102007,64,63,99,941,180,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-152242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-around-asia","9":"tag-asahi-shimbun","10":"tag-asia-world","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-japan","15":"tag-jobs","16":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}