DESPARDES (Update) — 1. Japan has implemented measures to create more opportunities for international students to find work in the country, as stakeholders warn current policies are not helping the country meet its demand for highly-skilled workers. It is not an option for filling jobs lost by population decline but a strategy. Most of the companies hiring international graduates have done so with an eye towards globalization and building a multicultural work environment, as well as for the skills that graduates can bring to the workplace.
2. The Japan-Pakistan agreement envisages opening up 14 Japanese sectors for Pakistan’s workers, including construction, information technology, nursing, manufacturing and engineering. The East Asian island nation is expected to welcome around 340,000 skilled workers from across the world, including Pakistan, to make up shortfalls in its domestic labor market. Pakistan is one of the 10 top countries from where Japan is planning to hire workers. For skilled people there was need to learn Japanese language, it’s a must. Those who successfully get the visa and pass their first five years in Japan, would be eligible to take along their families with them.
3. Anyone interested in going to Japan for work must first prepare for two exams: one, your skills exam; and two, the Japanese language test. There are at least 14 industry fields and job categories to engage in. For example, being a care worker requires some training in nursing. Then there are ever-in-demand skills in machine parts and tooling industries: casting, metal press, and finishing, welding, forging, sheet metal work, and machine inspection. Related to this is the industrial machinery industry including electric equipment assembling, ironwork, industrial packaging and die casting. There are electrical, electronics, and information industry jobs, construction jobs, shipbuilding and ship machinery industry, automobile repair and maintenance, aviation industry, accommodation industry, agriculture and fishery, coupled with the food and beverages industry. All these offer a wide range of jobs that are up for grabs. What you need is language and skills.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, has been battling a crippling labor shortage caused by an ageing and shrinking population. It plans to attract 500,000 foreign workers by 2025.
DESPARDES REPORT (Oct 8, 2019)– Japan is in talks with Pakistan for import of skilled labor, and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU0 will be signed soon, reported Radio Pakistan on Monday.
The MoU could be signed as early as next month, said Minister and Deputy Head of Mission at Embassy of Japan in Pakistan Mr. Yusuke Shindo.
He said Japan has decided to open its labor market in 14 sectors (See complete list below). The list includes areas in which Pakistani manpower (totaling almost 10 million remitting on average almost $20 billion every year over a decade now) has been traditionally performing well abroad, such as: construction, nursing care, agriculture, manufacturing, light engineering, etc.
The move comes as world’s third-largest economy battles a crippling labor shortage caused by an ageing and shrinking population.
It plans to attract 500,000 foreign workers by 2025.
While Japan has traditionally been cautious about accepting unskilled workers from abroad and currently limits residential status to highly skilled professionals, it made some changes early this year.
Under the new legislation (April 2019), foreign nationals with skills in fields identified as facing shortages would be awarded a visa allowing them to work for up to five years.
Foreign workers in those fields who hold stronger qualifications and pass a Japanese language test will also be allowed to bring family members and can obtain permanent residency status– a practice already followed in the West.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has stressed the reforms are not intended as a wholesale overhaul of Japanese immigration policy, and mass immigration is not expected, reported South China Morning Post in October 2018.
