Is There (Finally) a Practical Way for Foreigners to Live in Japan?

For decades, Japan has been struggling with the economic need to attract more foreign residents to the country and the general social reluctance to do so.

Over the years there have been some well-publicized failures and a few quiet successes, and Japan retains her image as a generally closed nation.

But reality changes much faster than perception in Japan. Things are already changing and that change is about to accelerate. Today I'd like you to meet Nao Sugihara founder of MTIC, who is going to explain these trends in detail. Nao runs a recruiting platform called GaijinBank that deals exclusively with blue-collar, foreign labor, and he'll show you not only that Japan's has opened up far more than most people acknowledge, but that this trend will likely accelerate over the next 20 years. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

Which companies hire foreigners for blue-collar work n Japan The biggest misunderstandings between Japanese companies and foreign staff The overtime gap with foreign workers The real reasons foreign workers object to overtime Japan's new guest visa program How to integrate more foreigners into Japanese society Lessons learned from the Latin American guest-worker program Why the foreign nurses programs never seem to work out well

Links from the Founder

Everything you wanted to know about MTIC Friend Nao on Facebook About GaijinBank

Home Page Youtube Channel Facebook All Jobs in Japan

Leave a comment Transcript I love working with startups. I love talking with startup founders and I know that you do too. That is why you listen to the podcast and I thank you for that.

When the traditional media focuses on startups, they tend to look at the crazy founders making outrageous claims or the newly minted billionaires, CEOs, and investors. That is all good fun, of course, but when we look a little deeper, startups tell us something else.

Looking at what startups get started and what startups get funded, and what startups get traction, that tells us a lot about the kinds of problems that we, as a country, thin are worth solving. What problems are important enough to attract time and money, and customers changes a lot from country to country, and it reveals a lot about the social priorities of the cultures that these startups operated, and it’s not always a pleasant revelation.

Japan has always had a complex relationship with her foreign residents. Even today, there is a widespread intellectual acknowledgment that Japan needs to increase and encourage immigration but transforming that goal into actual policy enter real social acceptance, well, that is harder.

Today, we sit down with Nao Sugihara of MTIC and were going to dive deep into this. Nao runs a recruiting platform called GaijinBank and while there are lots of job sites catering to foreign engineers and creative’s, socket deals exclusively with the blue-collar labor.

Foreigners are working blue-collar jobs in Japan is actually an incredible aspect of the Japanese economy and one that is largely ignored, not only by the Japanese press, but even by the foreigners living in Japan, and you know, I have to admit, the things are different and, in some ways, much more encouraging than I expected.

But you know, Nao tells that story much better than I can. So, let’s get right to the interview.

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Interview

Tim: So, I’m sitting here with Nao Sugihara of MTIC which is Make Tokyo an International City.

Nao: Yes!

Tim: So, thanks for sitting down with me.

Nao: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity like this. I’m happy to talk today.

Tim: Wow, I’m glad to have you on, and I usually don’t interview founders of companies for like, recruiting companies, but what you are doing is really different.

Nao: Thank you.

Tim: You know, there is – I don’t know how many hundreds of different job sites for engineers and designers in Japan, but you’ve got a unique focus.

Nao: Yeah. Our service name is GaijinBank and we are especially for blue-collar type of work. We focus on the foreigner in Japan.

Tim: The job market for foreigners in blue-collar jobs is something that a lot of people don’t know outside Japan. So, tell me a little bit about your customers on the employer side. What kind of blue-collar jobs are being filled by foreigners in Japan?

Nao: For example, hotel, front desk, and craning, or manufacturing and construction, and logistics, and caregiver.

Tim: That seems quite a range of responsibilities, so something like factory work would not require a great deal of Japanese skills but someone working at the front desk of a hotel or being a caregiver, I imagine that would require some pretty high level of Japanese ability.

Nao: Yes.

Tim: So, where are these jobs? Are they in Tokyo or are they in the countryside? Are they all over Japan?

Nao: Of course, like many demand came from around Tokyo, and we do like Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa mainly, but actually, the countryside has more demand. So, we do sometimes in Fukushima in Tohoku and Ehime in Shikoku and can be like also Nagoya.

Tim: And are these permanent jobs? Are these temporary jobs?

Nao: We do both. Our temporary dispatching position and also sometimes, we introduce directly to employers permanently.

Tim: Now, in a minute, I want to dive deep into kind of this social impact that all this is happening, but looking at it from the employee side, who are taking these jobs?

Nao: We have many candidates, more than, I think nationality-wise, 100 countries, but mainly Asian countries people. Half of our candidates is a resident visa holder such as permanent, spouse visa, long-term visa. 30% students intend to 20% is like working visa, like international, humanity visa.

Tim: Okay, so my understanding was that for example, it’s almost impossible to get a permanent residency visa working at a factory. So, do they have permanent residency because of family members or for some other reason?

Nao: Yes, some of them like, get married with Japanese people or got married with permanent residence visa holder, then they become like a spouse, and then stay here maybe 5 to 10 years, they become a permanent resident.

Tim: So, when the employers contacted you, are they looking for foreign staff specifically or are they just looking for anyone to fill these positions and they can’t find Japanese or foreigners who are okay too?

Nao: Yes, they don’t care about the nationality. The most cases they cannot find Japanese workers, and then they kind of adjust.

Tim: What I imagined it for Japanese, particularly in these the blue-collar and very traditional industries, that’s a big adjustment. Do you guys help kind of bridge that communication gap?

Nao: In many cases, there was a miscommunication. For example, a contract or like some direction in the workplace. It’s kind of very difficult to communicate in Japanese or English, especially in Korea, cannot speak English in most cases. So, they call us, and then we communicate in English or their mother tongue.

Tim: Okay, so there are times you are actually providing an interpretation service so that they can give instructions to the employees?

Nao: Yes. We send it like a very bilingual staff in the work location, and then they directly bridge Japanese and English, or mother tongue.

Tim: So, I imagine a lot of cases, this is the employers first experience really working with a foreign staff. What are some of the differences between the expectation and reality? Just because the work culture in Japan is so different that it is in other places, so what kind of surprises or expectations are different?

Nao: The foreigner has, of course, like have a different culture. For example, some staff, after two weeks start working, like they ask us like, “Can I have a break, like one month? I have to go back to my country,” and wow, and then these don’t happen for Japanese employees, I think. So, we try to make sure, if you have a break plan, please let me know first.

Tim: That’s interesting.

Nao: And also like, work time, as you can imagine, Japanese people are accepting of overwork, but some foreign staff don’t like.

Tim: Oh, okay. Yeah, I can imagine that’s quite a surprise to a lot of foreign workers.

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Nao: We have to educate both sides. Employees, sometimes, you have to accept overwork, and do we educate also employers. If you have, they ask now in advance, and we inform.

Tim: When the foreign workers are objecting to the over time, are the usually objecting because of pain mandatory because of time and they had other plans?

Nao: Both. Sometimes, they have planned, so they just want to go home. Regarding payment, actually in blue-collar, the money is very well. Normally, employer pay all of overwork.

Tim: Okay. So, it’s really more just a matter of scheduling and having control of your own time. That makes sense.

Looking at Japan as a whole and how society is changing this way, your business of placing blue-collar – or let’s just say non-technical foreign staff, it seems like a really growth industry in Japan. Just a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, the government announced the new guest worker visa program for 2019, and they are targeting 40,000 foreign workers in Japan for next year, and they announced they are hoping for 250,000 by the fifth year. Do you think those numbers are reasonable? Do you think we’re going to see that many foreign workers coming into Japan?

Nao: Yes, that’s why I started this business. As you know, Japanese population shrink. In 2060, the population is going to be like, half. So, we need workers. Yeah, actually, some companies expect foreigner worker population,