Japan's new foreign trainee program to be more flexible for workers

enabling trainees who attain a certain level of skills and Japanese language ability after working for a year at one place to transfer to another within the same business sector, which is not allowed in principle under the present system.

So for decades this program won't allow them to change their employer, once they accepted by one abusive company they just need to face until the end of their trainee term or leave. It just another way of modern slavery, where company can secure position to become their master for years.

fees that trainees are often asked to shoulder. Currently, many workers go into debt to come to Japan under the program.

Not only Japan want their to do overtime without pay in Japan but Japan also want them to cover cost for many paperwork that necessary even before they go to Japan.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/21/national/social-issues/trainees-hiroshima-overwork-unpaid-overtime/

as well as the lack of support from supervising organizations have led to cases of trainees running away.

All these trainees running away, conundrum for Japan Inc. and it's labor shortage.

It couldn't have to do with these 'black companies ' in the local parlance allowed to hold trainees passports, illegally garnish their wages, harass and bully them, especially women, and leverage their visa status in a race to the bottom in terms of compensation?

No nothing at all

But the new system will allow trainees to transfer if they have the requisite Japanese language level and have passed the skills test.

It depends on how high these bars are set as to whether "flexibility" will really be a hallmark of the new system.

Japan's version of indentured servitude.

Save yourself the trouble. Don't come!

agree with all the above posters

""But the new system will allow trainees to transfer if they have the requisite Japanese language level and have passed the skills test.

This is better but NOT GOOD ENOUGH, workers should be allowed to transfer to another company REGARDLESS of their Japanese language skills, if they were accepted at first with whatever language skills they had then they should be able to transfer to another company with the improvement and learning skills they GAINED.

This language skill requisite is just a NEW TWISTED OBSTICLE being put in their way to prevent them from moving, and whoever decides the the test outcome is another OBSTICLE in the way because it is SUBJECTIVE. Plus who will draft the test?, is it the same for all? this panel must decide all the details.

Is this the best they could come up with After all this so called "" government panel "" work, studies, and evaluation of the current system? How SAD.

One thing I learned living in Japan is to NEVER ENTER or sign a CONTRACT without having an attorney or a legal adviser reviewing it.

Always be on the look out as they use the Language excuse to rip you off anyways they can, from Car Insurance, to home insurance, to bank loans, to cellular contracts, to auto loans, and I am talking about major companies too like DoCoMo and SoftBank too. Even small service companies and or Realtors and will try to get every extra yen possible out of you in a very POLITE and friendly way.

Just drop the whole "training" facade... There is no training. They are workers doing the jobs Japanese do not want to do for the salary offered. The foreign trainees come because they can make 5 x the salary of their home country. Just call it a "Foreign workers program", limit the stay to 5 years with no exceptions. Allow transfer between employers and enforce contracts as is usual in Japan.

Slave labor program more like it.

Changing companies and locations needs to be a guarantee not an option with a variety of prerequisites attached. It’s literally a big reason why they are having this meeting.

Being worried they will want to move to cities instead of the country side isn’t their problem, it’s a problem that the government and business community have been creating for the last 50 years.

want them in the country side to keep it going? Incentivize it for foreign workers and Japanese domestic ones

Keepitreal....

Slave labor program more like it.

So lets keep it real. Vietnamese and Cambodians are literally queuing up to come to Japan. The jobs they do are rejected by the Japanese workforce, hard, dirty and low paid. The employers would prefer Japanese but they simply cannot get them for the salaries offered. The foreign "trainees" all know very well the conditions but as I said before, its still a good deal for them as they can save for their future. The conditions and work may be hard but still much better than those in Cambodia or Vietnam.

Blood,sweat, tears and the exploitation of every drop of strengths from young people came from third world countries.

This modern version slavery that had been left until causing many victim and innumerable human rights violations.

Policies by LDP government who prioritize benefiting corporations or flattening far-rightists than human lives are always doubtful even if they changed something.

Supervising organizations, which act as brokers and also supervise companies accepting foreign trainees, will be restricted from holding executive posts at the companies concerned 

No conflict of interest at all. I guess it’s a baby step in the right direction but we all know how the local operators work. They will stack all the cards so heavily in their own favor that these laborers will always be vulnerable. I don’t see a revolution of consciousness or compassion happening in the industries they are involved in either. The very nature of the construction industry means it’s full of tough guys of the old ways, in fact that’s construction everywhere around the world, foreign laborers always cop it.

The fact that a new law has just been created to at least let these foreign ‘trainees’ now walk away from the worst offenders is a small but very much needed consolation. Was surprised to hear it’s only just come on the books actually. Being locked into a black operator with zero options other than packing your bags just sounds cruel.

Slave Labor at its best.

TRAINEE-TRAP, the trap used to abuse young people in the name of skill training.

Slave Labor at its best.

They volunteer to come, there is huge competition to get chosen. Stop insulting slavery.

TRAINEE-TRAP, the trap used to abuse young people in the name

Wrong.... they all know what is involved, boring repetitive jobs such as fish preparation, agricultural work or factory labor.

Please stop calling them "foreign trainee". It is a euphemism for cheap, easy to exploit migrant workers. Corruption marbled in the entire process.

The title foreign trainee gives the warm, fuzzy feeling of helping underprivileged folks living in third world countries to come here and get the training they need to go back home and apply these newly obtained skills to improve economic conditions in their homeland. It ain't the same as working a summer internship at Google, folks - It's cheap immigrant labor to pick your produce , clean bed pans, and wash sheets as love hotels.

Slave Labor at its best.

Terrible comparison - How one treats their animals is more on par with what slavery actually is. Though migrant workers are exploited and abused, there are options. None of which slaves ever had.