Politics : "Japan Limited Immigration; Now It's Short of Workers"

This is the headline of an article in The New York Times. Unfortunately I have reached my quota of free articles this month, so I couldn't read the whole article and I can't post it here. This is the link, in case anyone wants to read it (and in this case, please copy and paste it here):
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/business/japan-immigrants-workers-trump.html

Even without reading it, I can pretty much guess at its contents. Following its editorial line, The Times is probably pontificating about how immigration is the bestest cure ever for everything from the common cold to a flagging economy.

Now, I am sure some of the posters here will be tempted to comment on this from an ethnic point of view, but that is not my intention. The headline grabbed my attention because of something else: my reaction was, don't these people think a little further than the short term? Japan is a relatively small country with a huge population and terribly over-crowded cities. Is it really in their best interest as a nation to keep this madness of constant population growth in order to sustain the economy? How far can that go, in a country like Japan? Would it not be better to allow the population to decrease? Sure, there will be tough times ahead, but eventually things will settle down and couples will start having more children again.

Automation is the future. You won't need workers.

Yup.




The future is machines feeding 500+ pound human beings till they need to be put in a baby elephant coffin.

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and in this case, please copy and paste it here

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Done

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GIFU, Japan Liu Hongmei was fed up with her job at a Shanghai clothing factory, where she worked long hours for little pay.

So three years ago, she quit to take a job in Japan. A garment factory there promised Ms. Liu three times her $430-per-month Chinese wage, and she hoped to save thousands of dollars for her family, which was growing with the recent birth of a son.

It seemed like a big opportunity, she recalled.

Call it an opportunity, maybe, but dont call it work. Legally, the time Ms. Liu spent ironing and packing womens wear in Japan is considered training. She had entered the murky and at times abusive world of Japans technical trainees essentially second-class laborers brought in from abroad to fill jobs that Japanese citizens arent taking.

Just like the United States and other developed countries, Japan has a hard time finding people to pick vegetables, collect nursing-home bedpans and wash restaurant dishes. In America, many of these low-skilled, low-paying jobs are filled by illegal immigrants, an arrangement attacked by President Trump during his campaign.
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Japan, on the other hand, long ago achieved what Mr. Trump has promised: It has very little illegal immigration and is officially closed to people seeking blue-collar work.

Now, though, its tough stance on immigration legal and illegal is causing problems. Many Japanese industries are suffering from severe labor shortages, which has helped put a brake on economic growth.

That is prompting Japan to question some fundamental assumptions about its labor needs. The debate is politically delicate, but changing realities on the ground in Japans factories and fields are forcing politicians to catch up. Japans total foreign-born labor force topped one million for the first time last year, according to the government, lifted in part by people entering the country on visas reserved for technical trainees.

That growth has also led to an increase in cases of worker abuse and fraud, labor activists say.

Ms. Liu is part of that debate. She arrived in Japan in debt after paying brokers $7,000 to arrange her visa. Once there, she said, she found onerous working conditions and lower-than-promised pay.

Her bosses, she said, treat us like slaves.
Technically Training

Ms. Liu and other Chinese workers at her factory came to Japan through a government-sponsored internship program. Its purpose is to square the circle between Japans labor shortage and its ban on low-wage immigration.

Farms, food-processing businesses and many manufacturers would struggle to stay afloat without foreign trainees, specialists say.

Practically every vegetable in the supermarkets of Tokyo was picked by a trainee, said Kiyoto Tanno, a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University.

To appease business groups, the government has created immigration loopholes, and hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers like Ms. Liu have poured through them. They come from China and Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia, and they are filling empty jobs in Japan as the Japanese population shrinks, becoming a crucial if underacknowledged motor of the economy.

Their numbers are soaring. The trainee program has doubled in size in the last five years, to over 200,000, according to official data, and the government is planning to expand it. The biggest source of workers has been China, but much of the recent growth has come from Vietnam.

Few doubt that training is a fig leaf. Beyond a short period of language study, most trainees receive little or no instruction that would distinguish them from regular manual laborers, specialists and participants say.

The system is like calling a crow white, said Yoshio Kimura, a member of Parliament from the governing Liberal Democratic Party who heads the partys labor committee. What were really doing is importing labor.

Training is not the only way around Japanese immigration restrictions. There are also students in part-time jobs, asylum seekers waiting for refugee applications to be processed almost all are ultimately rejected and South Americans of Japanese descent who can obtain special visas based on their ancestry.

Demand still outstrips supply. The number of working-age Japanese has been falling since the mid-1990s, a consequence of decades of low birthrates. Nationwide unemployment is just 3 percent, and in some places, jobs are simply going begging. There are three to four positions open in nursing care and construction for every person who applies, according to government surveys.

Eventually, Japan plans to lengthen the maximum time that trainees can stay in the country to five years, from three, and allow more kinds of businesses to hire them, including nursing homes and cleaning companies for offices and hotels.

Parliament approved the creation of a new agency to oversee the trainee program last year, in response to criticism over worker exploitation. Once it is in place, the plan is to bring in more workers.

Mr. Kimura and some other lawmakers want to go further, by establishing a formal guest worker system. Though it would not open a path to immigration workers would still be expected to go home eventually it would be more forthright than the current approach.

Business groups favor the proposal, and the Liberal Democrats approved it as party policy in May. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not indicated whether it will follow through.

If we want economic growth in the future, we need foreigners, Mr. Kimura said.
Cant Walk, Cant Leave

Nobuya Takai, a lawyer who has represented foreign trainees in labor disputes, said the pretense that trainees are not workers contributes to problems.

Companies do not hire them directly, but through a byzantine system of government and private-sector middlemen. Most trainees end up thousands of dollars in debt to pay broker fees before they even arrive, say Mr. Takai and others who have studied the program. And because trainees cannot easily switch jobs their visas tie them to a single company they lack what should be major leverage: the ability to walk out on a bad employer.

They cant change jobs, and they lose money if they go home, Mr. Takai said.

In 2011, an American State Department report on human trafficking flagged the trainee program for what it said were inadequate protections against debt bondage and other abuses. When trainees dont save enough to repay broker fees, they sometimes stay on illegally. Almost 6,000 did so in 2015, according to Japans Justice Ministry. (There are about 60,000 foreigners total in Japan without valid visas, according to the government, compared with an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States.)

The New York Times spoke with more than a dozen trainees. All of them said they had paid labor brokers in their home countries, usually $7,000 to $11,000, to come to Japan to work. Most borrowed the money from family or banks.
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The trainees came from several countries in Asia and worked in different industries, in different parts of Japan: a Cambodian construction worker, a Chinese lettuce picker, seamstresses from China and Vietnam.

Complaints about unpaid labor were common. Cao Bao, a 33-year-old from Jilin Province in northeast China, worked for Kishimoto Manufacturing, a small auto parts supplier in central Japan.

He said Chinese trainees there were made to clean and paint the factory on their days off, without pay, when managers found errors in their work. He was fired when he complained, he said, and a Japanese labor union has taken up his case.

Some Japanese are helpful and nice, but the people at the company are different, Mr. Cao said.

Masahisa Kishimoto, the companys president, said Mr. Cao had left of his own accord, and he blamed cultural differences for problems at the factory. In China, he said, they dont clean.

There are no rules, he continued. Theres a sense that you if you dont get caught, you can do anything.

Mr. Kishimoto referred other questions to Joho Highway Co-op, an employers association that recruits trainees on behalf of Kishimoto Manufacturing and other local businesses. The co-op said that Kishimoto had been imposing penalty overtime on both Japanese and Chinese workers, in violation of labor rules, and that Kishimoto had compensated the employees after the co-op intervened. Mr. Kishimoto said the company had fully complied with labor laws.

Government data on workplace accidents shows that trainees are more likely to be hurt on the job than Japanese workers a result of poor training, language barriers or more dangerous assignments. Since 2010, two trainee deaths have been recognized by the government as cases of karoshi, the Japanese term for death by overwork. Given widespread underreporting of overtime, the true number could be higher.

In the financially struggling garment industry, abuses are pervasive enough that the minister of economy, trade and industry promised an inquiry last year, during a debate in Parliament over expanding the trainee program.

Tham Thi Nhung, 32, a mother of two from Vietnam, said she worked from 8 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m. Her job was to sew jackets, coats and dresses at a small clothing factory in Aichi prefecture, an industrial region in central Japan.

All but one of the businesss six seamstresses were Vietnamese, Ms. Nhung said. They hadnt had a day off in four months, she said, but the owner was recording only part of their overtime. In November, after the women complained that they were being underpaid by $712 a month, the owner sent a letter saying the factory was closing, and they were being laid off.

A telephone number registered for Ms. Nhungs employer, Fashion Ai, was not working, and a lawyer representing the company declined to comment.

We told the boss, but she said she wouldnt pay more, Ms. Nhung said. She told us to keep working or go back to Vietnam.
Unpaid Debts

Ms. Liu said she emptied her savings and borrowed from relatives to cover the visa fee.

Ms. Liu and her colleagues said their employer had been paying them less than the legal minimum wage for overtime, and had been overcharging them for company housing.

The employer was 50-year-old Takeshi Nakahara, who along with his wife owns several small garment factories in Gifu, near Aichi. He started using Chinese trainees 15 years ago, he said in an interview, because no Japanese want to work in the apparel industry.

Low wages are the only way to compete with cheap foreign factories, he added. Most manufacturers have moved overseas, he said. Its the only way to stay profitable.

Mr. Nakahara said he had been paying Ms. Liu and other Chinese workers less than minimum wage for overtime, though he said the idea had been theirs. They demanded more overtime work, he said. I told them it wouldnt be profitable for the company, and they said they were willing to work for less.

Although the arrangement was illegal, he said he felt betrayed when the women, nearing the end of their three-year contracts, made demands for back pay.

The workers sought help from Zhen Kai, a Chinese labor activist who has lived in Japan for decades. He operates a small union office in Gifu that includes temporary rooms in which workers can stay.

Mr. Zhen says that he sympathizes with the businesses and that many would have folded without the trainee program. The government, he says, has effectively kept such businesses alive by letting them exploit workers.

Owners often say to me, Are you trying to destroy my company? he said.

Mr. Zhen negotiated with the Nakaharas, who offered a settlement, initially about $5,800.

Fed up and homesick, Ms. Liu accepted the offer and was getting ready to go back to China, even though she still owed money to the relatives who helped her pay for her visa. The other four women decided to stay in Japan to fight for more compensation, and a few weeks later accepted offers of $10,000 to $16,000.

Asked if they had learned anything during their ostensible training, they laughed bitterly. Only hardship, Ms. Liu said.

My image of Japan, she said, was that it was a good country.

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Thanks for that. Giving temporary work permits to foreigners seems like a good solution, but obviously it seems that the working conditions for them have to be improved (to put it mildly!).

see, they almost share the values the fckng jews have forced on us.

Heil Me!

economic refugee status for all! Zero hours contract's for everyone!

Heil Me!

for our friends, the fckng jews.

Heil Me!

Well it makes a change from the usual 'lack of immigration/cultural 'enrichment' causes problems for Japan's ageing population' type schtick typically peddled by lefties! Not that I'm necessarily suggesting that such an assertion - nor what's apparently claimed in the OP, are inherently inaccurate of course.

Still, one can't help but be moderately sceptical of such claims considering the undeniable attraction, perhaps even necessity to the average diversity 'junkie' in portraying resolutely monocultural Japan as a nation in decline as a consequence.

This is not least because many herald the land of the rising sun's perpetual aversion to immigration as irrefutable proof that the mass importation of low/no skilled culturally/socially backward peoples really isn't the wisest of policies.




GladysOver: the (piss) artist formerly known as Chopper-Chang

I think the article shows the problem with a strict immigration policy. A cut in low skilled immigration means a shortage of low skilled workers (obvious), & illegal immigration means a rise in exploitation. Making low paid immigration sort of legal doesn't solve the problem of exploitation. The real solution is effective legal immigration policy, where low skilled workers are paid equally & have a legitimate path to citizenship.

Admittedly I am not aware of the social/cultural issues with immigration in Japan

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

It shows what a sucker you are.

Japan and the US are in completely different situations. Japan has an incredibly low (below replacement) birth rate and is a small isolated country that is very anti immigration.

The US has millions of foreign born nationals and we have millions of people out of work. We do not need more people competing fir those jobs. And illegal immigration hurts the poor the worst because those are the people having to compete with illegals for jobs.

We don't have a problem with a "strict immigration policy" we have a problem with illegals flooding the country.

PS: what is up with that pic of your ass?

Not sure what the P.S means =S

illegal immigrates make up about 4% of the US population, & has actually decreased since 2000, of that 4% half are from mexico

There is nothing to support the claim that 'illegals are flooding the country'

I was not trying to compare the US & Japan with regards immigration, just making the general point that legal immigration is the best solution

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

Nobody actually knows how many illegals are in the US and we already allow more legal immigrants than just about any other country. We have so many illegal Mexicans where I live that they built a Mexican consulate right down the street from my house so the illegals wouldn't have to go to Chicago.

The US doesn't need any more immigrants, we allow plenty in LEGALLY.

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we already allow more legal immigrants than just about any other country

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er no, the US is nowhere near the top of any list for legal immigration

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

You sure about that sweetie?

Because I am.

But since I'm such a nice guy before I embarrass you (you certainly don't need any more embarrassment after your ass selfie) by pointing out how wrong you are I'll give you a chance to look up the stats yourself.

So go look up immigration stats and let me know what country lets in more immigrants than the US or has a larger foreign born population than the US.

You know.if you're not too busy taking ass selfies.

I would like to know what you think your doing right now? are you aware you're a dumb ass troll?? Or oblivious?

here: net migration rate, per 1000 population:

I'm sure it will make no difference ..

Qatar 22.39
British Virgin Islands 17.28
Luxembourg 17.16
New Zealand 15.0
Cayman Islands 14.40
Singapore 14.05
Bahrain 13.09
United Arab Emirates 12.36
Anguilla 12.18
South Sudan 11.47
Turks and Caicos Islands 9.94
Cyprus 9.48
Aruba 8.92
Spain 8.31
San Marino 8.03
Libya 7.80
Norway 7.25
Sint Maarten 6.63
Isle of Man 6.56
Djibouti 6.06
Belgium 5.87
Canada 5.66
Australia 5.65
Austria 5.56
Sweden 5.42
Liechtenstein 5.08
Switzerland 4.74
Botswana 4.56
Iceland 4.43
Italy 4.10
Ireland 4.09
New Caledonia 4.01
Nepal 3.86
United States 3.86


http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

No sweetie..you said:

"er no, the US is nowhere near the top of any list for legal immigration "

("Er no" lol? More of that millenial "wit")

The US allows more immigrants in than any other country.


"The following table shows the average national inflow of immigrants, in thousands, from 2001-2010 from OECD data. The U.S. ranks highest with around a million immigrants moving here each year."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2012/11/18/is-the-u-s-the-most-immigrant-friendly-country-in-the-world/#11261f111bad

what you're doing is trying to go by percentage instead of raw numbers sweetie. Which is fine, even if it is a bit dishonest. The problem is you said "the US is nowhere near the top of any list for legal immigration" (well, actually you said "er, no, the US is nowhere near the top of any list for legal immigration" but the "er, no" part was so dumb I just left it out when quoting you).

The US is tops when you go by number of legal immigrants. We also have one of, if not the, largest percentages of foreign born people.

So.now sweetie are you sure the US isn't "near the top" in any list for legal immigration?

That's because no one considers that the important figure, you might like to read the articles you link:

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There are two important lessons from this data. First, when you consider the size of our population, we are not the most immigrant friendly country in the world. Australia, Switzerland, Canada, and other wealthy countries do a far better job than we do by more appropriate measures. This also suggests that we are not doomed to become a poor country if we move to higher rates of immigration.

Are immigrant populations like this untenable in the U.S.? The data does not suggest this is the case. Immigrants make up over 20% of the population in New York, California, and New Jersey. These states also happen to rank 3rd, 10th, and 16th by median income.

Instead of 1 million immigrants a year, these numbers suggest we could be letting in as many as 3 million a year and we would still not rank in the top 5. If we want to actually be the most immigrant friendly country in the world were going to need to do even better than that

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By suggesting there is a flood of immigrates, your are suggesting a large increase in immigrate population, here is a link to a pew report that shows true state of affairs: http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

Lol, no sweetie..you said the US was nowhere near the top of any legal immigration list.

That was a lie. We let in the most legal immigrants.

Now you can try to claim the fact that we let in more legal immigrants than any other doesn't matter.but as we both know ..you're FOS.

(Here's the part where you say something really witty like "beta cuck")

fine, but my point still stands

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illegal immigrates make up about 4% of the US population, & has actually decreased since 2000, of that 4% half are from mexico

There is nothing to support the claim that 'illegals are flooding the country'

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You said very specifically

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we already allow more legal immigrants than just about any other country

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I fell for the bait having only looked at the percentage not the actually amount, well done.

It's an irrelevant figure

The foreign born population is around 10 - 15% of the US's total population, this is not a high number in the US's history, nor compared to the rest of the world

The percentage matters, if 100 people immigrated to a place with 25 people, that would have a more significant effect on the population then 100 people to a population of 10,000

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

Sure sweetie.

The FACT that we let in more immigrants than any other country is "irrelevant" when talking about immigration.

Sure thing.

OK

why is that number important when considering the effects of immigration?

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

Note that Australia has a higher immigration index than the USA does..


Might be a clue for the people who think everyone looks like Paul Hogan..

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The real solution is effective legal immigration policy, where low skilled workers are paid equally & have a legitimate path to citizenship.

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The point I was trying to make is precisely that THAT IS NOT A VIABLE LONG-TERM SOLUTION, especially for a country like Japan which has a huge population in a relatively small area and over-crowded cities. This is like putting more coal in the engine of a runaway train that is heading straight for a wall.

If they do what you are proposing, where does it end? With 130 million inhabitants, some aspects of the quality of life in the big cities of Japan are already pretty bad - crazy real-estate prices, congested roads and public transportation, pollution, etc
If they do what you are proposing, where does it end? 150 million? 200 million? If you follow the line of reasoning that you need constant population growth to feed the economy, at one point it's going to blow up in your face!

Again I will say I'm not aware of the specific problems in Japan

My only point is if immigration is necessary it must be legal immigration with a path to citizenship. Otherwise it will always be open to exploitation.

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

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My only point is if immigration is necessary it must be legal immigration with a path to citizenship. Otherwise it will always be open to exploitation.

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No, because legal immigration with a path to citizenship means population growth, and population growth is only a stopgap solution. It is not a viable long-term solution for any country, and especially not for Japan which is already over-crowded.

A much better solution for the case of Japan would be a better system of temporary work permits. Foreign workers would come in for one or two years (without families), would work in the factories or fields, would be paid fairly, would be treated the same way as Japanese workers, and then would go back to their countries with a nice chunk of money. Canadian farms do that with Central American labourers.

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If you follow the line of reasoning that you need constant population growth to feed the economy, at one point it's going to blow up in your face!

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I acknowledge this, an error that sadly is widely spread!

The more You have to study and work and the less vacation You have the less You want to found a family because You're struggling already. The vacation part is already understood in Germany (that is somehow comparable to Japan), the rest not yet. Changes in the sciences of political economics are still to come!

A path to citizenship is not necessary. Like one of the workers in the article said, she was trying to save money for her child. Pay and conditions should be enough. No need to let them stay permanently.

Robots


The Players of The Game are the scum of the earth.

Hey, I've got an ideathose millions of refugees and illegals trying to get in the US..send em to Japan.

Japan can enjoy the benefits of "diversity" and the US won't need a wall.

you're an idiot ..

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

I think youre racist against the Japanese, only a bigot would refuse to help them with their labor shortage.

Ex IMDb users forum here: http://area51.boardhost.com/index.php

if you click on the link in her sig the first thing you'll see is a pic of her ass. Kind of says all that needs to be said about her IMO.

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Kind of says all that needs to be said about her

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erm what exactly does it say about me virgin!!?

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

That you're very intelligent and you want everyone to know it, obviously.

Ass pics are a sign of very high intelligence. Everyone knows that.

Nothing makes me respect a broad more than a good ass pic.

Oh *beep* you beta cuck

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

Ass selfies and witty comebacks like "virgin" and "beta cuck" ..gotta love millenials, lol.

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gotta love millenials

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Don't pretend your criticising a generation or group, i'm a person and you said a nasty thing, you're no crusader

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Hey, I've got an ideathose millions of refugees and illegals trying to get in the US..send em to Japan.

Japan can enjoy the benefits of "diversity" and the US won't need a wall.

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Sorry i can't match your 'wit' or 'intelligence' ..

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

No, you can't match my wit or intelligence but don't sell yourself short, you take a mean ass-selfie.

We all have different talents.

Oh *beep* you beta cuck

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

Lol, out of comebacks already?

Maybe you should stick to taking ass selfies in your safe space?

People drive commerce. economies cant grow without people, but the racists among us won't understand.

But don't expect Cletus from his trailer park or Zan the skinhead to understand

Donald Trump Supporters - Klan, Kremlin, Koons

If there is a domestic labor shortage the answer may be immigration, but it should be legal immigration.


You are fake news, lol.

Agreed, illegal immigration is exploitative

Workers are not afforded the rights & privileges of the host country

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

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but it should be legal immigration.

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And indeed selective immigration, not just admit any old riff-raff, more the merrier like the West ruinously does now.


GladysOver: the (piss) artist formerly known as Chopper-Chang

riff-raff? are you a Victorian gentlemen? =P

In what way should it be selective?

http://n00dlenerd.tumblr.com/

I guess your people must have been English scholars and doctorates when they came here from the old country.

The typical legal immigrant coming here is more educated then the wave of white immigrants that came here in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Deal with it Adolf.

Donald Trump Supporters - Klan, Kremlin, Koons

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People drive commerce. economies cant grow without people

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That is not entirely true. Look at any fast-growing economy and you will see that the GDP progresses at a faster pace than the population grows, which means that part of the economic growth is not caused by simply adding more people to the equation.

And who says that economies have to grow forever anyway? How can you have unlimited growth on a limited planet (or archipelago, in the case of Japan)?

Law of diminishing returns applies, of course.

Donald Trump Supporters - Klan, Kremlin, Koons

One can also argue the opposite, that with plentiful cheap workforce, robots will never be developed. That would also be a shame.