> Immigration authorities say the move is aimed at preventing cases in which foreign workers obtain visas under one category, but then engage in unrelated or lower-skilled work.
The claim appears to be that people were using up visa slots for things like interpreters or other jobs where clearly you'd need good language skills to actually do the job, including in Japanese, with the intent all along of doing some other job instead. An up-front test should let through almost all of the legitimate claimants of these visas, and stop almost all the fraudsters. Probably a lot cheaper than a similarly-effective level of after-the-fact auditing, or more-extensive checks into applicants' work situation.
[EDIT] I mean, in the framing provided by the government, the above appears to be what's going on. Governments may lie, of course.
Its not shocking, I see it implemented ie in Switzerland, where half of the world tries to get in. Since each part has their own language and none of that is english, its pretty important to exist in society for anything but brief visitors.
Its not restrictive as this (B2 is pretty high level in any language, here its weak B1) and resefved for 'higher' permits like C, for which you anyway need 10 years of residency in normal circumstances.
But japan is japan and one of most closed societies globally, nobody should be surprised by this.
It should be noted that JLPT is not a direct equivalent to CEFR. CEFR requires you to pass speaking and writing, JLPT does not demand you to be able to write, or speak, at all. IT only tests listening and reading. This ironically means that while yeah, you will be able to read a LOT of kanji with JLPT N2, you might not be anywhere near B2 level at speaking and conversation, and probably not at all when it comes to writing (writing Kanji is a whole other thing beyond being able to read, it requires dedicated practice, but anyways a lot of people now don't need to since you can type it out on your phone or computer, and just copy that onto the form or whatever you are writing on)
Went there in 2012 and then again last year. It's wild how quickly it's changed. IMO, Japan is a very special place and it's sad to see that it's having the same problems as the rest of the first world.
>If I'm applying for a work visa where the work I'm doing would require me to know Japanese, I should know Japanese.
the naturalization act of 1906 and the immigration act of 1917 , in the US, were some of the hardest fought-for and controversial laws ever put in place.
The immigration act got vetod by 3 different sitting presidents in different forms , and the naturalization act included a 'free white persons & natives' clause that screwed over a lot of people.
It was pretty widely seen as a method to minimize poor working people. Both laws were used a ton during the commie red scare against citizens, and the 1917 law is essentially held responsible for the separation of families / 'port of entry tragedies' that separated families based on things like language.
now : i'm not saying that Japan is walking in the same foot-steps, just pointing out that language/culture exclusivity within legal spheres usually ends poorly for the people.
I think we need to acknowledge that all but the most transitory fruit pickers may want to settle permanently after working in a country for many years, and should not unreasonably be prevented from doing so.
If i were working in a country for many years, I would make some effort to learn to communicate with the other people who live in that country, before becoming a permanent resident. I understand this is very difficult; I've been studying Spanish every day for almost 2 years and I am nowhere near fluent. However, I suspect I would be further along if I lived somewhere where people commonly spoke Spanish.
Without knowing the numbers, I'd wager that the majority of work Visas worldwide are "dual-intent", to use the USCIS parlance. Restrictions might be higher or lower in different countries, but there's generaly a path dor moving from a work visa to permanent residency.
The key thing is that the ESI category includes a lot of work which you don't need to know Japanese. For example, software engineering jobs in Japan are often at either larger multinational companies or companies with enough presence outside of Japan that they have teams which are in English.
Japan has been on a recent anti-immigration kick via making visas harder and more expensive to get while also blaming them for all of their problems which, isn't really gonna work out for multiple reasons.
Teaching English is humanities though, not IS, so that doesn't work. (To clarify, teaching at any sort of private company. A K12 school has a dedicated Instructor class that can't be used for anything else.) And translating (which requires proficiency) is IS in some cases I think?
Key detail:
> Immigration authorities say the move is aimed at preventing cases in which foreign workers obtain visas under one category, but then engage in unrelated or lower-skilled work.
The claim appears to be that people were using up visa slots for things like interpreters or other jobs where clearly you'd need good language skills to actually do the job, including in Japanese, with the intent all along of doing some other job instead. An up-front test should let through almost all of the legitimate claimants of these visas, and stop almost all the fraudsters. Probably a lot cheaper than a similarly-effective level of after-the-fact auditing, or more-extensive checks into applicants' work situation.
[EDIT] I mean, in the framing provided by the government, the above appears to be what's going on. Governments may lie, of course.
There's also the issue of people going to Japan to buy out several properties to then rent them out.
Its not shocking, I see it implemented ie in Switzerland, where half of the world tries to get in. Since each part has their own language and none of that is english, its pretty important to exist in society for anything but brief visitors.
Its not restrictive as this (B2 is pretty high level in any language, here its weak B1) and resefved for 'higher' permits like C, for which you anyway need 10 years of residency in normal circumstances.
But japan is japan and one of most closed societies globally, nobody should be surprised by this.
> The new benchmark has been set at the equivalent of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) B2 level.
B2 is upper intermediate. Probably 2-5 years of study
https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-referen...
Or JLPT N2. Which is quite difficult - approx 4000 words and 1000 kanji. That's several years of learning for all but the most proficient.
(The scale starts at N5 and lower numbers are harder)
It should be noted that JLPT is not a direct equivalent to CEFR. CEFR requires you to pass speaking and writing, JLPT does not demand you to be able to write, or speak, at all. IT only tests listening and reading. This ironically means that while yeah, you will be able to read a LOT of kanji with JLPT N2, you might not be anywhere near B2 level at speaking and conversation, and probably not at all when it comes to writing (writing Kanji is a whole other thing beyond being able to read, it requires dedicated practice, but anyways a lot of people now don't need to since you can type it out on your phone or computer, and just copy that onto the form or whatever you are writing on)
Anyone who has been to Tokyo recently understands why this is necessary. Hopefully not too little too late.
Went there in 2012 and then again last year. It's wild how quickly it's changed. IMO, Japan is a very special place and it's sad to see that it's having the same problems as the rest of the first world.
I mean, seems fair.
If I'm applying for a work visa where the work I'm doing would require me to know Japanese, I should know Japanese.
Why do you need that requirement be validated by people and at a level not connection to the place of work?
Presumably 1. the "places of work" are not doing sufficient validation, and therefore 2. regulation is needed when the non-regulated path is failing.
>If I'm applying for a work visa where the work I'm doing would require me to know Japanese, I should know Japanese.
the naturalization act of 1906 and the immigration act of 1917 , in the US, were some of the hardest fought-for and controversial laws ever put in place.
The immigration act got vetod by 3 different sitting presidents in different forms , and the naturalization act included a 'free white persons & natives' clause that screwed over a lot of people.
It was pretty widely seen as a method to minimize poor working people. Both laws were used a ton during the commie red scare against citizens, and the 1917 law is essentially held responsible for the separation of families / 'port of entry tragedies' that separated families based on things like language.
now : i'm not saying that Japan is walking in the same foot-steps, just pointing out that language/culture exclusivity within legal spheres usually ends poorly for the people.
Ok, but neither of those are about work visas.
If I'm applying for a work visa, it's because I expect to be in that country to work, not as a permanent resident.
I think we need to acknowledge that all but the most transitory fruit pickers may want to settle permanently after working in a country for many years, and should not unreasonably be prevented from doing so.
If i were working in a country for many years, I would make some effort to learn to communicate with the other people who live in that country, before becoming a permanent resident. I understand this is very difficult; I've been studying Spanish every day for almost 2 years and I am nowhere near fluent. However, I suspect I would be further along if I lived somewhere where people commonly spoke Spanish.
Without knowing the numbers, I'd wager that the majority of work Visas worldwide are "dual-intent", to use the USCIS parlance. Restrictions might be higher or lower in different countries, but there's generaly a path dor moving from a work visa to permanent residency.
The key thing is that the ESI category includes a lot of work which you don't need to know Japanese. For example, software engineering jobs in Japan are often at either larger multinational companies or companies with enough presence outside of Japan that they have teams which are in English.
Japan has been on a recent anti-immigration kick via making visas harder and more expensive to get while also blaming them for all of their problems which, isn't really gonna work out for multiple reasons.
But the law doesn't apply to all ESI jobs, just a subset which (ostensibly) do need to know Japanese.
See, I would have figured the "Specialist in Humanities" part of it would not include software development.
I just looked up the definition/qualifications for it and I misunderstood the bit.
I thought it was sub categories. Engineers, who are Specialists in Humanities, who are doing International Services.
But it's more like three different categories. Engineers OR Specialists in Humanities OR International Services.
It seems like they could just move International Services to its own category. (Based on the information in this link: https://portal.jp-mirai.org/en/work/s/highly-skilled-hr/giji...)
Teaching English is humanities though, not IS, so that doesn't work. (To clarify, teaching at any sort of private company. A K12 school has a dedicated Instructor class that can't be used for anything else.) And translating (which requires proficiency) is IS in some cases I think?