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More on Foreign Workers in Japan: What is Keidanren After?

April 20, 2007
By Ken Worsley


Keidanren, the Nippon Business Federation, is pushing for a system that will allow more skilled foreign workers to enter Japan. However, be careful not to confuse this with an immigration policy. Hiroshi Inoue, Keidanren’s director of international affairs, recently told members at a conference in Hakone sponsored by the European Commission delegation in Japan (source of quotes is print edition of Japan Times, 4/19/2007, page 3, author Eric Johnston):

We cannot say we don’t want the workers to settle in Japan. But in terms of formulating a policy for the introduction of foreign laborers, we are assuming there will be a rotation system. I don’t think it’s likely that the majority of foreign workers will want to settle in Japan, so the assumption is that they will return to their home countries after a certain period.

There’s more than just a lack of hospitality in the sentence, “We cannot say say we don’t want the workers to settle in Japan.” That’s ok, Inoue-san: you don’t have to say it. The message came out loud and clear.

In response, Yoichiro Mizukami, a former head of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, told the audience:

A system of rotating workers in and out of the country will not work. Sociologically, foreign workers are already immigrants once they arrive in Japan. We shouldn’t look at them as just laborers. We have to view them as human beings first, and it’s time for policymakers to do that.

After that statement, Claude Moraes, a member of the European Parliament, warned Japan against the danger of adopting a policy similar to Germany’s policy toward Turkish immigrant labor in the 1960s:

The guest worker model Germany tried has failed. Germany got the labor, but the Turkish immigrants don’t feel as if they are a part of German society. Japan must avoid adopting an immigration system that results in a two-tiered society. I would suggest that Japan look to the immigration policies of Sweden and Finland, which serve as positive models of how immigrants can integrate into society.

I think Mr Morales has hit the nail on the head: the two-tiered society is exactly what I see being pushed for, and exactly what I’ve seen taking shape at Japanese firms and in society at large. Whose ends does it serve?

Rather than bring up the example of Germany, why not bring up Japan’s own failed immigration policy in terms of bringing in Nikkei workers from South America? This created a two-tiered society, and the program was based on the assumption that these people would simply pack up and go home at some point. It seems a bit odd that no one brought this up at the conference.

What is Keidanren thinking? Are they trying to keep conservative politicians happy, or are they seriously thinking that people will spend time, money and effort becoming proficient in the Japanese language only to be able to work here a few years and get sent home?

And, over at the Mutant Frog Travelogue, Adam Richards has posted a recent thoughtful piece on the issue. It’s well worth your time.

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Comments

10 Responses to “More on Foreign Workers in Japan: What is Keidanren After?”

  1. Adamu on April 20th, 2007 9:20 am

    Thanks for the link.

    The Keidanren is “thinking” that it wants to be extremely careful in advocating policies that screw over Japanese labor, which is of course the bulk of their platform.

    Over the long term, the Keidanren favors a complete liquidation of the labor market for both skilled and unskilled workers. In fact, in their fascinating 2003 policy outline called “Vision 2025″ (PDF) they have established a goal of “Advancement of the five freedoms—in goods, people, services, capital, and information—and two forms of cooperation, to solve economic problems and boost regional growth” as well as “finaliz[ing]… a system for bringing foreigners to work and live in Japan” by 2010 (it’s right under their chilling suggestion “Establishment of a system allowing individuals to opt for voluntary euthanasia”). And by 2015 the group seeks “[a]ctualization of the free economic sphere in East Asia, with most nations taking part.”

    Maybe they were being polite in looking at European examples since the sympo was held by the EU. Personally, I think they should adopt the Thai model - a de facto hands-off approach that has produced a permanent yet satisfied minority of aging Western thugs along with scores of refugees that wither in the border regions. Oh, and of course toothless laws against foreign capital and urban development that result in more Pizza Huts, Tescos, and Subways in countless gigantic shopping malls than there are in a Western city. It’s dangerous and chaotic, but at least the local population is making money by scamming the Westerners

  2. Arudou Debito on April 21st, 2007 2:56 pm

    Hi Ken. Thanks very much for reporting on this! I’ve excerpted your blog entry with links to your site in the most recent Debito.org Newsletter, archived at
    http://www.debito.org/index.php/?p=349

    Got a comment from a reporter this morning, however–the one who wrote the article you cite. He would prefer that you more explicitly acknowledge the Japan Times as your source. You have included the link, yes, but recommended is that you put in the Japan Times plus date just to be sure.

    Paid media is starting to get grumpy about bloggers apparently stealing their business, and are threatening crackdowns. Probably best just to acknowledge sources and give them fewer arguments to throw back at us.

    I’ve put a comment about this (plus the JT article in full) on my blog this morning here:
    http://www.debito.org/index.php/?p=352

    Anyway, thanks for the blog entry, and I hope the Newsletter increases your traffic. Best wishes, Arudou Debito in Sapporo

  3. Ken Worsley on April 21st, 2007 3:43 pm

    Debito, Thanks. True, this article quotes a bit liberally - I always try to acknowledge the source, it just seems to have been subsumed under the business of writing here.

    The funny thing about complaints from ‘paid media’ is that websites like this one are driving traffic to them, and in turn that increases their revenue since there are more people to potentially view and click on ads. Nobody with any real business savvy would complain about such a situation, especially since more and more people read the paper online and bloggers/webmasters are a huge part of where their traffic comes from.

    I also haven’t heard anything directly, which leads me to believe the complaint isn’t from anyone in a management position. Of course, I’ll put up the date and source as I originally intended but forgot.

  4. Steve S on April 21st, 2007 5:50 pm

    Crackdown? They’re talking about a crackdown on their own revenue streams and profit? Someone seems to be missing the point of this whole interweb thingy and how it works.

  5. John Sheridan on April 21st, 2007 6:24 pm

    Let me see if I get this straight: Reporters are trying to use bloggers to do their dirty work by threatening each other? Wow…so much for the newspaper’s credibility.

  6. Ken Worsley on April 21st, 2007 6:36 pm

    John, are you being sarcastic or just taking the piss? You know that’s not what’s going on at all. I wrote that I wasn’t contacted directly to show exactly that such a thing wasn’t taking place. I admit that the way of getting the message passed on to me doesn’t have the fingerprints of a skilled PR professional on it, but neither do I. The point was that I provided a link to the article without explicitly stating the source because I was just lazy and busy. I fixed that, the source is on there. Don’t read too much into it.

    Didn’t you once say something like, “Comment on the post, not the hoopla surrounding it?”

  7. John Sheridan on April 21st, 2007 7:32 pm

    Being sarcastic. I think I made that comment about the hoopla on another blog, so it doesn’t apply here. Stay focused.

    By the way, looking at your post and the article (which I had to search for, thanks a lot!) I noticed something: You never quoted the author. You quoted the comments of the speakers, which is public domain, given that they made the comments in public at a public forum.

    The complaint is 100% bollocks.

  8. Ken on April 21st, 2007 8:39 pm

    John: I was already well aware of what you’re saying about the quotes, but I didn’t see any reason to say it out loud.

  9. Mike on April 22nd, 2007 4:56 pm

    Interesting story…as far as that goes I think both you and Adamu have some good points. It’s interesting how in the US everyone wants immigrants to come in and clean toilets, while Japan talks about bringing in ’skilled’ workers, when that increases the difficulty for the native population to get jobs. Then again, nothing resembling a real ‘immigration policy’ will take shape for at least another five years.

    As far as this ‘reporter’ goes, why didn’t he email you or leave a comment? It’s kind of hard to take the guy seriously if you only quoted what other people said, which (John is right, here) is public domain, and you linked to the original story. You did what you have to do; This is how link sources are generally handled everywhere - why the sudden whinging?

    I think management of these traditional media outlets should be made aware that they have employees out there making fools of themselves by trying to bully bloggers and making the organization look bad in the process.

  10. Foreign Students Staying on to Work in Japan Hits Record High: Ministry of Justice : Japan Economy News & Blog on December 2nd, 2007 11:03 pm

    […] group. Then, in April, we heard Hiroshi Inoue, Keidanren’s director of international affairs, tell an audience in Hakone: We cannot say we don’t want the workers to settle in Japan. But in terms of formulating a policy […]

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