Becoming global talent? Taiwanese white-collar migrants in Japan

ABSTRACT

As more governments implement skill-based migration policies, understanding how policymakers, employers and migrants evaluate and interpret skills is of great importance. Based on a study of Taiwanese white-collar migrant workers in Japan, this article treats skills as socially constructed and offers an opportunity to investigate how skill is experienced across borders. This article makes contribution to skilled migration research by investigating the social contexts in which skills are categorised, evaluated, and developed, and how such experiences feed into migration decisions and adaptation outcomes. To many Taiwanese college-educated migrants, coming to work in Japan is a first step in being recognized as ‘global talent’. The initial successful migration outcome fails, however, to retain these new arrivals to corporate Japan. Taiwanese migrant professionals usually do not aspire to develop the firm-specific skills and in-house careers that Japanese-style training regimes offer.

KEYWORDS:

• Skilled migrants
• skill formation
• skilled migration policy
• international human resource management
• Japan
• Taiwan

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Those who work in career-tracks have prospects to be promoted through career ladders, as opposed to general staff positions.

2 Most interviewees pointed out that their top choice is the United States. However, the usual requirement of obtaining the highest degree in the US before being eligible for employment requires family resources that most do not have. Many dislike China and exclude it from the list of destinations, even when it is much easier for Taiwanese to work in China legally and culturally as compared to moving to Japan. Those who reject China, note its worsening environmental quality, high living costs, and authoritarian regime.

3 For example, young people self-deprecatingly use the term she chu (i.e. ‘wage slave’). They have little choice but to endure Taiwanese ‘spoiled bosses’. The term she chu originates from the Japanese shachiku [literally, ‘company cattle’], referring to the situation of being trapped in harsh working conditions.

4 The personal tales were submitted by authors or solicited, sometimes through interviews, by platform members. Typical content concerned motivations for working in Japan, recruitment processes, and work experiences. The platform published the stories more regularly, often twice a month, beginning in 2018. These personal narratives come from a variety of skilled migrants. Some authors updated their work situations in consecutive writings.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation, Taiwan [105-2410-H-002-129-MY2].