Skilled or unskilled?: The reconfiguration of migration policies in Japan

ABSTRACT

While Japan has long been perceived as a country with restrictive immigration policies, it has been rapidly widening its immigration gates through various policy reforms in the past decade. The most prominent policy shift in Japan took place in 2018 when the government decided to officially open its labour market to migrants who work in 14 occupational sectors, including agriculture, elder care and construction, which used to be considered ‘unskilled’ and 'semi-skilled' in previous migration schemes. This study analyses how the major shifts in Japan’s migration policies have been introduced through the redefinition of ‘skills’ and ‘skilled migrants’. In doing so, it integrates the scholarly debates on immigration policymaking in Japan and the literature on the conceptualisation of skills. By reviewing the development of skilled migration policies and some impactful discourses driven by global, national and regional forces, this study argues that the ambiguous nature of ‘skills’ and the multi-level merits as outcomes have facilitated the major policy transformation in Japan.

KEYWORDS:

• Skills
• migration
• regional migration
• policymaking
• developmental state
• Japan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 While such analysis is certainly meaningful, in actuality Japan has admitted unskilled workers through ‘side-doors’ (student migration and the Technical Intern Trainee Program) to tackle labour shortages. Their number is now quite substantial, exceeding 600,000 in 2018 (MOJ 2019a, 2019b).

2 The International Labour Organization (ILO) defined the concept of skills as ‘the ability to carry out the tasks and duties of a given job’ and has the dimensions of ‘skill level’ and ‘skill specialisation’ (ILO 2012, 11). ILO also defines the ‘skill level’ as ‘a function of the complexity and range of tasks and duties a worker can perform’ and addresses the dimension of social construction, referring to the roles of employers, education/training institutions and national authorities that acknowledge individual’s skill levels and qualifications. Indeed, these institutions play crucial roles in issuing degrees, diplomas and certificates as well as accrediting migrants when they move across borders. The most notable point of the ILO definition is that there is no category of ‘unskilled’ for any occupations or workers. OECD, on the other hand, defined ‘skilled workers’ based on occupations and qualifications (OECD 1995, 3). It presented two definitions of skilled workers, or using their term, ‘human resources in science and technology (HRST).’ The wider definition of HRST extended to everyone who has completed post-secondary education or is working in an ‘S&T occupation’. In this definition, ‘S&T’ encompassed not only natural sciences, engineering and medical sciences but the ‘social sciences, humanities, and other fields’ (OECD 1995, 21). Its narrower definition, on the other hand, covered only those with at least university-level qualifications in natural sciences or engineering or working in an ‘S&T occupation’ (ibid). In both definitions, tertiary education and certain occupational sectors were a proxy measurement for ‘skilled workers.’ Following suit of many other industrialised countries, Japan adopted the OECD’s definition of HRST by admitting those with a bachelor’s degree under its work visas.

3 The actual number of ‘skilled migrants’ in Japan is higher, since there are 1.5 million permanent residents, naturalised citizens, their foreign spouses and foreign spouses of Japanese citizens, many of whom used to hold ‘skilled visas,’ and yet are no longer counted as part of skilled migrants’ statistics.

4 The incentives include expediting the visa process for applicants and their family members, offering a work permit to a spouse and a visa for a domestic worker and parents, and shortening the required residency period for permanent residency application.

5 While ‘regionalism’ often refers to a force for developing a common identity across multiple countries and/or supra-national institutions, it is also used as an ideology that promotes a shift of political autonomy in the context of domestic political administration, or secession. The term in this study refers to the latter.

6 After the SSW scheme started, it was decided that the admission of agricultural support workers through the NSSZ scheme would cease in March 2020 and these workers would be transitioned to the SSW scheme.

7 While foreign chefs have already been allowed to work in Japan, their skilled visa requires 10 years of work experience. In contrast, the NSSZ scheme enables migrants with only one year of experience to work as washoku chefs. The maximum length of stay was initially two years but was later extended to five years (Cabinet Office 2018c).

8 Technical interns/trainees who have completed their term in Japan will be exempted from these exams (Cabinet Office 2018d), and thus are expected to constitute a large segment of the first cohort of SSW-1 migrants. Indeed, among 96 workers who were certified as ‘Specific Skilled Workers’ between April and July 2019, the majority were former technical interns/trainees (Murakami 2019).

9 Agricultural workers are not a monolithic category and are thus placed at different levels: agricultural labourers in Skill Level 1 (elementary skill level), skilled agricultural workers in Level 2 and agricultural managers and technicians in Level 3 (ILO 2012). The NSSZ accepts both skilled agricultural workers (Level 2) and agricultural labourers (Level 1).

10 These support activities can be outsourced to registered third-party organisations.