Japan must hoist the 'Immigrants Welcome" flag

[Taro Toporific]

ass-munching_hypocrite.jpg

'Only immigrants can save Japan'
The Japan Times | Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012
Japan as we know it is doomed.
Only a revolution can save it.
What kind of revolution?
Japan must become "a nation of immigrants."
That's a hard sell in this notoriously closed country. Salesman-in-chief --- surprisingly enough --- is a retired Justice Ministry bureaucrat named Hidenori Sakanaka, former head of the ministry's Tokyo Immigration Bureau...
...He is focused on demographics. "Japan," he said in a recent telephone interview, "is on the brink of collapse."
...{Sakanaka} delivers a quasi-ultimatum: "The Japanese should become aware that they live in an era of a severe population crisis and that it is no longer possible to live in peace in a closed world only among Japanese nationals. There is no way for Japan to survive but to build a society of living with immigrants and hoisting a new flag: 'Immigrants Welcome.' "
More...

[Coligny]

Whatever...

iqlywz.jpg

[Taro Toporific]

Whatever...

iqlywz.jpg

Several times I've meet this douchebag Sakanaka when he was just a bucho in the Tokyo Immigration Bureau (during my 1st futile attempt to obtain Permeant Residency). According to his returnee assistant (who I ended up dating), that after a couple of drinks Sakanaka would rave for hours on how much he hated granting gaijin visas, yet now Sakanaka is selling books about Japan's need for gaijin.

[Coligny]

yeah, daguerreotype or it didun't happen...

'cause, mee too, I boned Carlita Bruni'rkozy before she became a fasciste whore...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

yeah, daguerreotype or it didun't happen...

'cause, mee too, I boned Carlita Bruni'rkozy before she became a fasciste whore...

No shit? I thought that in Pulp Fiction when they're talking about the Royale with Cheese, they were talking about your male member and your cuntry's former prime minister (also being screwed by your current president).

[Russell]

Ultimately, he believes, an influx of highly skilled foreign nationals trained in Japan will be the salvation of several tottering industries.

So, he wants highly skilled foreigners that have been trained not abroad, but in Japan? And they should be from all over the world. Never heard of language problems, causing such training to be less than efficient? This man appears a bit removed from reality. Probably the only immigrants suitable in this context are from... China.

[Taro Toporific]

yeah, daguerreotype or it didun't happen...

Sorry, the butterface returnee assistant broke all my collodion wet glass plates.

(That shit-eating smile of Sakanaka is forever burned into my retinas after his "advice" meetings sent me on multiple trips to gather documentation for a PR that could not be issued. It's fucking wacko that gaijin-hating Sakanaka is now "leading" the drive for immigration---I guess he needs a Filipina to change his nappies. )

[Coligny]

yeah, daguerreotype or it didun't happen...

'cause, mee too, I boned Carlita Bruni'rkozy before she became a fasciste whore...

No shit? I thought that in Pulp Fiction when they're talking about the Royale with Cheese, they were talking about your male member and your cuntry's former prime minister (also being screwed by your current president).

I never saw pulpfiction... the movie was out in december 94... with the soundtrack systematically broadcasted on every radio... and back then I wuz cought in a shitstorm checking twice a day if Belgrade's airport still had a functionning runway...

Funily enough...

[gaijinpunch]

That is fucked up. I was actually just talking about the conflict last night oddly enough. I know some people from the region here in Tokyo, and my mother has worked in a non-profit capacity with people there since the war started. I even went in '93, but to a "safe" area.

[Taro Toporific]

Kirk Masden on debito.org says the Japan's Right Wingers have reacted..

http://www.shinjuku-hyakunin.com/archives/52047435.html
Crush the Democrats Shina puppet regime !
Strike out against the betrayal of one's own country from the Democratic Party of Japan. Sakanaka's betrayal of one's own country, is economic man's betrayal of one's own country !!
Japanese! Wake up!

[sublight]

Of course, the 'critique' doesn't actually get commented on, since nobody over there can actually read Japanese.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Japan needs immigrants to boost population or could lose to China

Japan should craft an "integrated" immigration policy to cope with its shrinking population, or risk losing out to an ageing China in competition for vital foreign workers, the cabinet minister for administrative reform said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made raising Japan's rock-bottom birth rate a priority and wants to focus on drawing more women and elderly into the workforce to fill gaps rather than on immigration, a contentious topic in a society where many pride themselves on cultural and ethnic homogeneity.

[...]

"Even if you magically increased the birth rate by tomorrow, still it would take these babies 20 years to grow, so we really need to do something about the labor market," Taro Kono, appointed in October, told Reuters in an interview.

"People talk about getting more women (and) ... more senior people to stay in the labor market. We obviously have to do both, and that still will not be enough," added Kono, known before joining the cabinet as an outspoken critic of some government policies.

Kono said given "psychological barriers" to immigration among the Japanese public, the policy debate would take time.

But unless Japan begins to tackle the issue, it will lose out to China, itself facing an ageing, shrinking population.

[...]

"Are we competitive enough to pull good foreign workers to this country? I have some doubt about it,"

[kurogane]

The problem is that the ones they want don't want to come here, and they don't seem to want the ones that do. What sort of labour are we talking about here? If it's low paid sludgers let's hope they find another way to fill those gaps. Low paid migrants will turn this place into a barrio, or whatever the French term is for those sorts of crap neighbourhoods, like with the South American Nikkei in the 90s, and today. It's not fair to the workers, but it's certainly not fair to normal Japanese either.

[Wage Slave]

What sort of labour are we talking about here? If it's low paid sludgers let's hope they find another way to fill those gaps. Low paid migrants will turn this place into a barrio, or whatever the French term is for those sorts of crap neighbourhoods, like with the South American Nikkei in the 90s, and today. It's not fair to the workers, but it's certainly not fair to normal Japanese either.

"Think about China. They will soon start getting old and need a lot of care workers and they will start sucking in all the foreign workers, and then it's going to be fierce competition."

Kono said that the government was taking some steps to open up to foreign workers in sectors such as construction, nursing and domestic help, but an overall policy was needed.

Of course we are talking about low paid sludgers. That's where the shortage always is. Deciding to do it is the easy part - Doing it well is much more difficult.

[Yokohammer]

... Deciding to do it is the easy part - Doing it well is much more difficult.

Allow me to rephrase that a little ...

For Japan, deciding to do it will be a drawn-out, painful, gruelling, convoluted, tooth-pulling, heels-dug-in, garment-rending, hair-pulling, at-loggerheads battle.

I will be astonished if they even get to the second part.

To put it more kindly, the only way that Japan will be able to move towards welcoming immigrants will be very, very gradually, so as not to ruffle the feathers of the very large contingent who want no such thing, ever. The big question is: will that be soon enough?

I hope I'm wrong. I want to be proven wrong. But the track record is there for all to see.

[MrUltimateGaijin]

Whatever...

iqlywz.jpg

Several times I've meet this douchebag Sakanaka when he was just a bucho in the Tokyo Immigration Bureau (during my 1st futile attempt to obtain Permeant Residency). According to his returnee assistant (who I ended up dating), that after a couple of drinks Sakanaka would rave for hours on how much he hated granting gaijin visas, yet now Sakanaka is selling books about Japan's need for gaijin.

How long had you been in Japan at the time? What was the main problem?

[Samurai_Jerk]

Whatever...

iqlywz.jpg

Several times I've meet this douchebag Sakanaka when he was just a bucho in the Tokyo Immigration Bureau (during my 1st futile attempt to obtain Permeant Residency). According to his returnee assistant (who I ended up dating), that after a couple of drinks Sakanaka would rave for hours on how much he hated granting gaijin visas, yet now Sakanaka is selling books about Japan's need for gaijin.

How long had you been in Japan at the time? What was the main problem?

Let's just say that PR isn't バリアフリー

[kurogane]

What sort of labour are we talking about here?

Of course we are talking about low paid sludgers. That's where the shortage always is. Deciding to do it is the easy part - Doing it well is much more difficult.

Yeah, fair enough, eh? There seems to be a lot of PR about attracting the highly skilled, highly price help, but yeah......

Nice sentiments there, YH. Agreed. I can't see anything but a well targeted and managed trickle being acceptable and plausible, but even that would be a start. Since this is a temporary demographic shortfall they could try a proper guest worker programme, as most would likely go home after their tour, but judging by the debacle the apprentice visa programme seems to be I will hope but not expect. What they should do is actively target people they actually like, like the Vietnamese. The ones I see at the Katusdon place, etc. in Asakusa speak beautyfull Japanese and seem to get the whole Ganbaru thing. Not that lots of others can't or won't or don't, but they might as well be realistic about it and go with what is possible.

[wuchan]

There seems to be a huge disconnect between what the government wants and what the companies want. Well, more like what they don't want.

The government says they want educated, skilled workers and the immigration policies reflect that. What they don't want is low and middle class workers that may end up on welfare and in their eyes, commit crime.

The companies want low level workers so that the useless cronies at the top will never be challenged. They don't want highly educated workers that know how business works because they may want to make changes that really do need to be made.

Where are we in the end? A standoff. A possibly intentional standoff. If things keep going this way nothing will change which is what both sides want.

[Samurai_Jerk]

There are some sectors like IT where the government and corporations both want highly skilled workers for abroad. However, Japan is not unique in its shortage of qualified engineers and compared to the US at least the pay is pretty shit. Guys making $200 to $300 thousands dollars in Silicon Valley would be lucky to break 10 million yen in Tokyo with the same skill set.

[Wage Slave]

It's a numbers game though. Yes, highly educated and skilled workers in certain areas are in demand. However, the numbers needed are more or less inconsequential. And they have plenty of income so there aren't any real problems.

On the other hand many tens of thousands of lowly paid and hard worked care workers, domestic workers, cleaners, construction workers etc will we needed and the shortage, at the wage companies want to pay, is already starting to bite. Talking about immigration in terms of high level skill shortages and cherry picking people who have lots of alternatives entirely misses the point.

[Yokohammer]

There are some sectors like IT where the government and corporations both want highly skilled workers for abroad. However, Japan is not unique in its shortage of qualified engineers and compared to the US at least the pay is pretty shit. Guys making $200 to $300 thousands dollars in Silicon Valley would be lucky to break 10 million yen in Tokyo with the same skill set.

An IT worker making a decent wage in the US would be NUTS to come to Japan (unless there are other factors involved).

I was a little surprised to learn just how much IT guys who have been lucky enough to hook up with an Apple or Facebook or that level of corporation in the US earn. Starting salary at Facebook, especially for people who have done a year internship, is around 110K (that's around JPY 1,120,000 per month), plus a one-time 100K contract payoff, plus around 200K in stocks vested over 4 years.

Not bad. Not bad at all for a young-un just starting out.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I know a guy who is in HR at a major Silicon Valley company. He focuses on recruiting software engineers. He said the highest package he's offered a guy was $700,000.

[Yokohammer]

And to think that I did a year of high school and a year of college in Palo Alto. Oh where did I go wrong?*

* Answer: I came back to Japan. Of course that was the early 70's ... we still used slide rules ...

Edited to add: I recently came across an article about the high school I went to in Palo Alto: Henry M. Gunn. It was a rich kid/high achiever school even when I was there (don't ask me why I was there, I didn't fall into either of those categories), but still loose enough to be lots of fun. Apparently now the competition is so fierce and the demands on the students so crushing that kids are committing suicide in unprecedented numbers. Disturbing.

[GargoyleTS]

*shows up on shores of japan with a lawnmower, a leafblower, and a sign that reads "Will yardwork for sub-minimum wages and free manga"*

The Americans are coming.

The Americans are coming.

Wait, are there ANY lawns in Japan to take care of???

[matsuki]

There are some sectors like IT where the government and corporations both want highly skilled workers for abroad. However, Japan is not unique in its shortage of qualified engineers and compared to the US at least the pay is pretty shit. Guys making $200 to $300 thousands dollars in Silicon Valley would be lucky to break 10 million yen in Tokyo with the same skill set.

An IT worker making a decent wage in the US would be NUTS to come to Japan (unless there are other factors involved).

I was a little surprised to learn just how much IT guys who have been lucky enough to hook up with an Apple or Facebook or that level of corporation in the US earn. Starting salary at Facebook, especially for people who have done a year internship, is around 110K (that's around JPY 1,120,000 per month), plus a one-time 100K contract payoff, plus around 200K in stocks vested over 4 years.

Not bad. Not bad at all for a young-un just starting out.

The larger J-companies seem to be structured around more (skilled?) workers for less...so trying to convince them someone is worth 2-20times what they normally pay a J-worker seems like a dead-end journey. Not to mention the language/cultural/circular logic barriers.

[Takechanpoo]

Ōizumi, Gunma, in which 16% of the population are foreigners, in 2014 there are 171(97 households) of them being on welfare.
it accounts for 32.4% of the total welfare-payment recipients in Oizumi.
most of them are brazilian.

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20151 ... asahi-soci

[Samurai_Jerk]

Ōizumi, Gunma, in which 16% of the population are foreigners, in 2014 there are 171(97 households) of them being on welfare.
it accounts for 32.4% of the total welfare-payment recipients in Oizumi.
most of them are brazilian.

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20151 ... asahi-soci

Low-skilled laborers from third-world countries ended up on welfare? Shocking! Who could have seen that coming?

[matsuki]

Anbariibaburu!! Even worse than the unpaid locals who should be used to the slave life.

[inflames]

Like anyone should be surprised what would happen by letting in basically a bunch of undereducated foreigners on the basis of their Japanese ancestry.

In my hometown, the local community colleges offer free ESL classes for "residents" (citizens and people with residency visas - not tourists).