Japanese officials are refuting a wave of false claims spreading on social media that allege the government provides special grants to companies for hiring foreign workers or serving foreign clients.<\/p>\n
The misinformation is spreading ahead of the Lower House election on Feb. 8, where policies regarding foreigners in Japan have become a contentious campaign issue.<\/p>\n
One widely circulated claim suggests “you get subsidies for hiring foreigners,” a talking point that has even been used in candidates’ street speeches.<\/p>\n
This misrepresents a labor ministry grant to help foreign workers integrate by subsidizing costs incurred by businesses, such as translating company regulations and internal manuals.<\/p>\n
The subsidy is capped at 800,000 yen ($5,100) per business, regardless of the number of foreign workers employed.<\/p>\n
A labor ministry official denied the false interpretation, stating, “It is never provided solely for hiring a foreigner.”<\/p>\n
Similarly, posts on X (formerly Twitter) allege that the government subsidizes companies for renting cars to foreigners.<\/p>\n
The transport ministry offers partial subsidies to rental agencies, but for costs associated with multilingualizing their websites or installing translation devices.<\/p>\n
“There is no program that provides a subsidy just for renting out a car,” a ministry official said.<\/p>\n
Content suggesting that foreigners receive preferential treatment tends to provoke public anger and gain traction on social media, a trend that intensifies during election periods.<\/p>\n
During last year\u2019s Upper House election, some candidates were seen repeating similar claims from social media in speeches on the street.<\/p>\n
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has become a frequent target.<\/p>\n
Last August, the agency was forced to withdraw a cultural exchange program\u2014which designated four Japanese cities as “hometowns” for African nations\u2014after it was inundated with false claims that “immigrants will flood in.”<\/p>\n
Now, amid the current Lower House election, posts calling to “dismantle the JICA” are again circulating on social media.<\/p>\n
A senior Foreign Ministry official noted the trend, saying, “Since the start of the Lower House election, there has been an increase in posts critical of international cooperation.”<\/p>\n
On Jan. 27, a widely circulated post on X falsely claimed: “JICA gives about 100 million yen per company just to prepare Africans to work in Japan! And all they have to do is have two people research it for a year! If you have that kind of money, you should give it to the \u2018hyogaki sedai\u2019 (ice age generation)!”\u2014a reference to those who faced immense difficulties finding employment after Japan’s bubble economy burst.<\/p>\n
As of Feb. 4, the post had been viewed more than 1.7 million times.<\/p>\n
JICA clarified that this project is a research study on overseas employment for Africans and the demand on the Japanese side.<\/p>\n
JICA said it aims at having Africans work in Japan for a certain period to acquire specialized knowledge and then use it for their home countries’ development upon their return.<\/p>\n
The agency explained that it has not funded numerous companies; instead, it awarded a single contract of approximately 80 million yen to a joint venture consisting of two firms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese officials are refuting a wave of false claims spreading on social media that allege the government provides…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8768,4,450,451,3471,8767,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-452435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-asahi-shimbun","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-national-report","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}