> 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.
That being said, there is a broader trend, that Japan's immigration authorities are becoming more foreigner-hostile, reflecting a broader political view shift in Japanese society (see: Sanseito political party) and one could argue in the US and globally.
One data point: a few months back we had one of our employees denied a Permanent Resident Visa due to a clerical error where our company forgot to notify the immigration bureau of an address change--we literally moved our office across the street, same city block. Our lawyer said such a case was unheard of a few years ago; these were always handled as simple corrections, instead the poor chap had to go to the back of the 9+ month waiting queue.
Our lawyer says the news is too new to know what concrete ramifications it will actually have on us, a tech company which uses English as the main language for engineering roles.
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.
And twelve years ago, the Swiss voted to restrict EU FoM for itself and the backlash was instant.
Can't blame the government, this is the Swiss voting public doing their best to be dickheads.
Japan is a bunch of islands, yes it's pretty closed, but Switzerland is a land-locked village with fewer people than London and entirely dependent on trade and the movement of people and money for all they have, and barely a scrap of a language to call its own. English is super common there, probably as a way of democratically inconveniencing everyone.
Of course if you have active criminal record no point doing that. If you keep going away for 6+ months often it gets reset. If you have obviously lied on your tax return thats an issue too.
I know this intimately since right now going through this proces. One american colleague is doing the same. Right now, its much easier than ie in France.
There is definitely some hostility to some aspects of Islam, aspects which seem to only recently have become central to the exercise of worship for some (the veiling of women for instance), yet this has not translated to some outright discrimination of muslims. Bosnian and Albanian immigrants for instance appear to have been integrated and/or assimilated into society.
And second - it’s really hard to participate in society if you can’t speak the language. I think this creates resentment for both Japanese citizens and foreign residents alike.
I regret not studying sooner and harder, and a clear language requirement probably would have influenced me to try harder.
B2 is upper intermediate. Probably 2-5 years of study
https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-referen...
(The scale starts at N5 and lower numbers are harder)
But I think this arrangement is actually quite...realistic? Charitable? It's very hard to become conversationally fluent in a language - especially one as foreign for most learners as Japanese is - without the kind of serious immersion you can most easily get just by living in the country (though maybe I'm just making excuses for myself). Asking learners to do the groundwork and get the foundations at home before getting hit with that immersion is going to set them up for success and demonstrates a candidate's seriousness. My impression is that in such a situation most learners will improve quickly, but there's no getting around months and years of drilling kanji.
If I'm applying for a work visa where the work I'm doing would require me to know Japanese, I should know Japanese.
So either you vet the companies offering those jobs, or you vet the visa applicants.
slightly more seriously though work is one place where language acquisition happens organically, work is where culture emerges and despite the grievances I have with Anglosphere one great aspect of it is that they are never so frail to think that language can or must be imposed by a commissioner.
The alternative is that the company must provide evidence, but I don't see how this is better.
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.
There are smarter ways to implement a language requirement, and really this is part of a trend of Japan tightening up restrictions on foreigners to try and solve a perceived problem by a fraction of a fraction of individuals.
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...)
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.
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.