F-ed Old Gaijin

[Taro Toporific]

Pension problem for foreigners
by Terrie Lloyd/ Japan Today Sept 23
...Not many people know it, but the way the pension system is structured at the moment, foreigners living in Japan for longer than three years but less than 25 years, wind up paying 9% of their salary (having to be matched by their employer) into the Japanese pension system without any way to receive benefit....This means that foreigners working for less than this period not only can't collect a pension here in Japan after contributing up to 37 million yen (the top contribution rate), but when they go home, they can't collect a pension there either ....

[Neo-Rio]

I fall into this bracket. I had an option of getting a pension refund after 3 years, but I continued working here and it rolled over. Now what do I do?
What is everybody else doing?

[AssKissinger]

Talk about FUCKED!!!!! I'm seriously worried about this. What if I work here for 20 years and my wife dies or I become ill or whatever and can't make the full 25? It's totally scary. That's no joke, you could end up homeless.

[devicenull]

dont leave? :P

[Neo-Rio]

As long as I can leave Japan, work elsewhere, and come back in 21 years, I'll be happy with that.
But that's just f**ked...

Fortuantely I can still file a refund for my past 3 years, but that leaves me with a small problem considering I am half way through my fourth on a new job.

[kamome]

I think you get the equivalent of one months' salary as a refund for every year your work in Japan, capped at 3 months.

One strategy would be to break your residence in Japan after the 3rd year (i.e. pack up, cancel your gaijin card, relocate to your home country). Upon relocating, claim your pension refund. Then move back to Japan and reestablish yourself after a year.

What a pain in the ass.

[Taro Toporific]

I think you get the equivalent of one months' salary as a refund for every year your work in Japan, capped at 3 months.

One strategy would be to break your residence in Japan after the 3rd year (i.e. pack up, cancel your gaijin card, relocate to your home country). Upon relocating, claim your pension refund. Then move back to Japan and reestablish yourself after a year.

Wise advice from the master, kamome. (Hint: He knows what he's talking about unlike me.) In Neo-Rio's case, taking a visa break and a little R-&-R in Thailand sounds like a GREAT idea since there that pension refund burning a hole in his pocket. I've known a few employers of friends that have allowed their favored FG a "time out" and then rehired them.

Dang. "What a pain in the ass."

[Neo-Rio]

I think you get the equivalent of one months' salary as a refund for every year your work in Japan, capped at 3 months.

One strategy would be to break your residence in Japan after the 3rd year (i.e. pack up, cancel your gaijin card, relocate to your home country). Upon relocating, claim your pension refund. Then move back to Japan and reestablish yourself after a year.

What a pain in the ass.

Yeah, it's capped at 3 years alright. And yes, you can technically cheat it by doing what you mentioned. In order for the thing to go through, you need a copy of your passport showing that you actually left Japan, then you need to mail them your pension book... all from your home country, and then you need a forgiving company who lets you pull this off at, say, Christmas every 3 years or so, and gives you a new pension book on your arrival back after a week (which is pretty short notice).

And yeah, it IS a pain in the ass.... I'd better start looking into it NOW before I'm a lifer in Japan. Time to talk to the lady in charge of pensions in the office....

Thanks for the post, Taro.

What I find humourous about it all is this:- I'm forced to leave Japan in order to stop them wasting my pension. Or, maybe if they let me get a refund whenever I liked, I might have stayed the whole 25 years.....