Author Topic: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home  (Read 1520 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Americanhero1

  • Silver Star JTF Member
  • ********
  • Posts: 7617
  • I ain't going anywhere
Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« on: April 23, 2009, 09:45:18 PM »
Rita Yamaoka, a mother of three who immigrated from Brazil, recently lost her factory job here. Now, Japan has made her an offer she might not be able to refuse.

The government will pay thousands of dollars to fly Mrs. Yamaoka; her husband, who is a Brazilian citizen of Japanese descent; and their family back to Brazil. But in exchange, Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband must agree never to seek to work in Japan again.

“I feel immense stress. I’ve been crying very often,” Mrs. Yamaoka, 38, said after a meeting where local officials detailed the offer in this industrial town in central Japan.
“I tell my husband that we should take the money and go back,” she said, her eyes teary. “We can’t afford to stay here much longer.”

Japan’s offer, extended to hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Latin American immigrants, is part of a new drive to encourage them to leave this recession-racked country. So far, at least 100 workers and their families have agreed to leave, Japanese officials said.

But critics denounce the program as shortsighted, inhumane and a threat to what little progress Japan has made in opening its economy to foreign workers.

“It’s a disgrace. It’s cold-hearted,” said Hidenori Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, an independent research organization.

“And Japan is kicking itself in the foot,” he added. “We might be in a recession now, but it’s clear it doesn’t have a future without workers from overseas.”
The program is limited to the country’s Latin American guest workers, whose Japanese parents and grandparents emigrated to Brazil and neighboring countries a century ago to work on coffee plantations.

In 1990, Japan — facing a growing industrial labor shortage — started issuing thousands of special work visas to descendants of these emigrants. An estimated 366,000 Brazilians and Peruvians now live in Japan.

The guest workers quickly became the largest group of foreign blue-collar workers in an otherwise immigration-averse country, filling the so-called three-K jobs (kitsui, kitanai, kiken — hard, dirty and dangerous).

But the nation’s manufacturing sector has slumped as demand for Japanese goods evaporated, pushing unemployment to a three-year high of 4.4 percent. Japan’s exports plunged 45.6 percent in March from a year earlier, and industrial production is at its lowest level in 25 years.

New data from the Japanese trade ministry suggested manufacturing output could rise in March and April, as manufacturers start to ease production cuts. But the numbers could have more to do with inventories falling so low that they need to be replenished than with any increase in demand.

While Japan waits for that to happen, it has been keen to help foreign workers leave, which could ease pressure on domestic labor markets and the unemployment rolls.

“There won’t be good employment opportunities for a while, so that’s why we’re suggesting that the Nikkei Brazilians go home,” said Jiro Kawasaki, a former health minister and senior lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

“Nikkei” visas are special visas granted because of Japanese ancestry or association.

Mr. Kawasaki led the ruling party task force that devised the repatriation plan, part of a wider emergency strategy to combat rising unemployment.

Under the emergency program, introduced this month, the country’s Brazilian and other Latin American guest workers are offered $3,000 toward air fare, plus $2,000 for each dependent — attractive lump sums for many immigrants here. Workers who leave have been told they can pocket any amount left over.

But those who travel home on Japan’s dime will not be allowed to reapply for a work visa. Stripped of that status, most would find it all but impossible to return. They could come back on three-month tourist visas. Or, if they became doctors or bankers or held certain other positions, and had a company sponsor, they could apply for professional visas.

Spain, with a unemployment rate of 15.5 percent, has adopted a similar program, but immigrants are allowed to reclaim their residency and work visas after three years.

Japan is under pressure to allow returns. Officials have said they will consider such a modification, but have not committed to it.

“Naturally, we don’t want those same people back in Japan after a couple of months,” Mr. Kawasaki said. “Japanese taxpayers would ask, ‘What kind of ridiculous policy is this?’ ”

The plan came as a shock to many, especially after the government introduced a number of measures in recent months to help jobless foreigners, including free Japanese-language courses, vocational training and job counseling. Guest workers are eligible for limited cash unemployment benefits, provided they have paid monthly premiums.

“It’s baffling,” said Angelo Ishi, an associate professor in sociology at Musashi University in Tokyo. “The Japanese government has previously made it clear that they welcome Japanese-Brazilians, but this is an insult to the community.”

It could also hurt Japan in the long run. The aging country faces an impending labor shortage. The population has been falling since 2005, and its working-age population could fall by a third by 2050. Though manufacturers have been laying off workers, sectors like farming and care for the elderly still face shortages.

But Mr. Kawasaki said the economic slump was a good opportunity to overhaul Japan’s immigration policy as a whole.

“We should stop letting unskilled laborers into Japan. We should make sure that even the three-K jobs are paid well, and that they are filled by Japanese,” he said. “I do not think that Japan should ever become a multiethnic society.”

He said the United States had been “a failure on the immigration front,” and cited extreme income inequalities between rich Americans and poor immigrants.

At the packed town hall meeting in Hamamatsu, immigrants voiced disbelief that they would be barred from returning. Angry members of the audience converged on officials. Others walked out of the meeting room.

“Are you saying even our children will not be able to come back?” one man shouted.

“That is correct, they will not be able to come back,” a local labor official, Masahiro Watai, answered calmly.

Claudio Nishimori, 30, said he was considering returning to Brazil because his shifts at a electronics parts factory were recently reduced. But he felt anxious about going back to a country he had left so long ago.

“I’ve lived in Japan for 13 years. I’m not sure what job I can find when I return to Brazil,” he said. But his wife has been unemployed since being laid off last year and he can no longer afford to support his family.

Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband, Sergio, who settled here three years ago at the height of the export boom, are undecided. But they have both lost jobs at auto factories. Others have made up their minds to leave. About 1,000 of Hamamatsu’s Brazilian inhabitants left the city before the aid was even announced. The city’s Brazilian elementary school closed last month.

“They put up with us as long as they needed the labor,” said Wellington Shibuya, who came six years ago and lost his job at a stove factory in October. “But now that the economy is bad, they throw us a bit of cash and say goodbye.”

He recently applied for the government repatriation aid and is set to leave in June.

“We worked hard; we tried to fit in. Yet they’re so quick to kick us out,” he said. “I’m happy to leave a country like this.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/106964/Japan-Pays-Foreign-Workers-to-Go-Home

Offline briann

  • Silver Star JTF Member
  • ********
  • Posts: 8038
  • Mmmm HMMMMM
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2009, 09:58:27 PM »
I think its brilliant... and I wish we would do it here.  But the illegal immigration is more of the problem for us.... not the legal immigration.

Offline t_h_j

  • Master JTFer
  • ******
  • Posts: 1122
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2009, 10:47:03 PM »
I think its brilliant... and I wish we would do it here.  But the illegal immigration is more of the problem for us.... not the legal immigration.


it's not the same as the situation here.  It's like paying the children of american citizens born in another country to leave.

Offline Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks

  • Honorable Winged Member
  • Gold Star JTF Member
  • *
  • Posts: 23384
  • Real Kahanist
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2009, 02:32:50 AM »
More shells tossed from the peanut gallery, *yawn*. Don't you have Muzzie terrorists to defend?

Offline t_h_j

  • Master JTFer
  • ******
  • Posts: 1122
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2009, 02:42:09 AM »
More shells tossed from the peanut gallery, *yawn*. Don't you have Muzzie terrorists to defend?

and more ignorance from CF.  Don't you have random ethnic groups to call "muslims" again?  Oh wait, nevermind, you're probably hard at work making yet another utterly useless celebrity thread.

Offline Rubystars

  • Gold Star JTF Member
  • *********
  • Posts: 18307
  • Extreme MAGA Republican
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2009, 04:07:05 AM »
One of the things I really admire about Japan is how they keep Japan Japanese. They have pride in their heritage and in their nation and they keep their identity intact. God Bless them. I only wish white people would have been as smart rather than getting all mushy hearted.

Offline angryChineseKahanist

  • Gold Star JTF Member
  • *********
  • Posts: 10545
  • ☭=卐=☮
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2009, 09:57:28 AM »
Good idea. We should do it here.
U+262d=U+5350=U+9774

Offline briann

  • Silver Star JTF Member
  • ********
  • Posts: 8038
  • Mmmm HMMMMM
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #7 on: April 24, 2009, 11:25:12 AM »
I think its brilliant... and I wish we would do it here.  But the illegal immigration is more of the problem for us.... not the legal immigration.


it's not the same as the situation here.  It's like paying the children of american citizens born in another country to leave.

They are not FORCING them to lose their citizenship... they are giving them this option...  The story is trying to twist this fact.... but the truth of the matter is... they are OFFERING $4000 for them to do that.... and so far only 100 of the 360,000 of the Brazillian born Japanese have taken this option..... but there are more that are considering it.

If you think its inhumane or disturbing to lose your citizenship for money... then don't take the offer!

Offline Rubystars

  • Gold Star JTF Member
  • *********
  • Posts: 18307
  • Extreme MAGA Republican
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #8 on: April 24, 2009, 12:37:45 PM »
I understand why they want truly foreign people to leave but if someone is of Japanese descent then I think they should let them stay, because they have a blood tie to that nation.

Online Confederate Kahanist

  • Gold Star JTF Member
  • *********
  • Posts: 10771
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2009, 04:46:23 PM »
One of the things I really admire about Japan is how they keep Japan Japanese. They have pride in their heritage and in their nation and they keep their identity intact. G-d Bless them. I only wish white people would have been as smart rather than getting all mushy hearted.

I'm definitely not one of those mushy hearted white people.
Chad M ~ Your rebel against white guilt

Offline Rubystars

  • Gold Star JTF Member
  • *********
  • Posts: 18307
  • Extreme MAGA Republican
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2009, 05:29:20 PM »
One of the things I really admire about Japan is how they keep Japan Japanese. They have pride in their heritage and in their nation and they keep their identity intact. G-d Bless them. I only wish white people would have been as smart rather than getting all mushy hearted.

I'm definitely not one of those mushy hearted white people.

I'm not either but I get frustrated with those who are and let other groups run all over our rights in the name of diversity and inclusion.

Offline cjd

  • Silver Star JTF Member
  • ********
  • Posts: 8996
Re: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2009, 03:43:50 AM »
Its an interesting story and one that is a sign of the times. I saw where in the article it was stated that they were concerned about Japans wage structure.
Quote
“We should stop letting unskilled laborers into Japan. We should make sure that even the three-K jobs are paid well, and that they are filled by Japanese,” he said. “I do not think that Japan should ever become a multiethnic society.”
It also seems from what the article states that there are low paying jobs that seem to be going unfilled in Japan. What is the point of having people who are not actually citizens stay in a country and absorb benefits or even worse collapse the wage structure. In the future they can always start issuing temporary work visas again if needed.
Quote
Though manufacturers have been laying off workers, sectors like farming and care for the elderly still face shortages.
I don't see anything wrong with a policy like this they are not forcing anyone to actually leave against their will and it does not seem to be targeted at naturalized citizens. America should adopt a policy like this and fast.
He who overlooks one crime invites the commission of another.        Syrus.

A light on to the nations for 60 years