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Foreign Students Staying on to Work in Japan Hits Record High: Ministry of Justice

Back in March we heard that the number of foreigners working at Japanese companies had hit a record high yet again, and digging into those numbers showed us that the number of foreign workers at Japanese companies who came from East or Southeast Asia was growing much faster than any other 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 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.

No word yet on what he’s smoking, but the Yomiuri provided what sounds like a juicy headline today: Number of foreign students staying on to work in Japan hits record high.

According to the Ministry of Justice, which controls Japan’s immigration bureau, the number of foreign students who found jobs and stayed in Japan after graduating in 2006 increased by 40%, from just over 5,900 in 2005 to 8,272 last year.

Of this group, 6,000, or 75.53%, were from China. They were followed by 944 South Koreans, 200 Taiwanese, 119 Bangladeshis, and 118 Malaysians.

About 70% of these workers went into non-manufacturing firms, with the largest group of them (about 2,700, or 30%) going into translation or interpretation positions.

My initial reaction to this was that the numbers seem a tad low, although the growth rate is obviously headline worthy. In April 2006, the number of foreign workers at Japanese firms stood at a record-high 222,929. This was an increase of 24,549 (or 12.37%) over the 2005 numbers. I’m projecting an increase of between 27,000 and 29,000 foreign workers at Japanese companies in 2007, and that might have to be revised upward with these new figures coming out.

What we need to bear in mind here is the magic number of 27,071. That would be the number by which the head count of foreign workers would have to increase by in 2007 in order for the quarter million mark to be surpassed. Given the growth in the rate of foreign graduates finding work in Japan and the relative ease with which they obtained visas - of the 9,034 who applied for visas, 8,272 were approved, for a 91.57% success rate - the low unemployment rate (down to 3.7%) and the greater number of positions than job-seekers in metropolitan areas, I can see the 250,000 threshold easily being crossed sometime early next year.

A quick note on that 91.57% success rate for foreign graduate visa seekers in 2006. Given that these visas need to be sponsored by companies, we can thus assume that 91.57% of that group had secured employment in Japan. According to data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japanese university graduates had an 85.8% success rate in securing jobs in 2006 - and an 87.7% success rate in 2007.

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