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TOKYO -- "Who says Japan is not open to immigrants? Anyone with a B.A. (degree) can get a job here," said Yohei Shibasaki, CEO of Fourth Valley Concierge Corp, a leading headhunting firm headquartered in Tokyo that recruits from 130 countries. Shibasaki, who also serves as a Ministry of Labor task force member on immigration policy, rattled off data showing not only that the number of foreign students graduating from Japanese universities has been increasing sharply, but that the percentage getting jobs after graduation is among the highest in the world. Of 40,000 international students in Japan who graduated in 2017, 19,400 found job placements -- a 24% increase over the number of successful job seekers in 2016, according to the Ministry of Justice. Around 90% of those who applied for jobs were successful. By comparison, the United Kingdom (with about half the population of Japan) issued about 6,000 working visas to non-European Union foreign students immediately after graduation. Shibasaki added that while companies in the U.S. and U.K. do not tend to award working visas to fresh graduates who lack work experience, Japanese companies prefer youngsters whom they can train and retain over the long term. But the headhunter's expansive claims are a tad disingenuous. The total number of legal foreign workers in Japan remains tiny, at 1.08 million in 2016, out of a total population of 127 million. Jobs are overwhelmingly available only to Japanese speakers, which is why the bulk of foreign workers are Chinese or South Koreans, who find it relatively easy to learn the language. Of the 19,400 graduates who got job placements this year, 11,000 were Chinese, according to the MoJ. Nonetheless, the foreign labor force is growing by about 20% a year, according to the MoJ, and Japanese immigration policy is quietly easing. For example, from this year skilled foreign professionals can get permanent residency in Japan after living in the country for between one and three years, depending on factors such as education, training, work experience and age. The previous minimum period was five years. Ultimately, given Japan's unfavorable demographics, most agree that immigration policy will loosen further. Despite those who believe that robots can replace immigrants, the country's shrinking labor force and ageing population both point in that direction. In 2016 only 980,000 babies were born in Japan, down from 2 million in 1975, and the working age population is predicted to decline by 10 million to 67 million between 2015 and 2030, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Unsurprisingly, more than half the companies surveyed recently by the ministry said they had an interest in recruiting from overseas. One sector that is actively seeking to induct talent from abroad is information technology. Japan already suffers from a shortfall of 200,000 IT engineers, a gap that is expected to grow to 800,000 by 2030, according to METI. An obviously fertile hunting ground is India. Easier to compete Shibasaki's company has been collaborating with about 30 Indian universities over the last seven years, including several Indian Institutes of Technology -- highly regarded autonomous institutes of higher education -- to recruit graduates for Japanese businesses. Until recently the company found it tough to compete with big U.S. companies because the salaries and terms they offered were much higher than those in Japan. But the number of IT jobs in countries like the U.S. has declined sharply amid growing visa uncertainties and a trend for Western companies to shift operations to cheaper locations, including India. "Now we can and do compete," he added. |
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