Requirement to be added to “jobs in which Japanese is used.”

For foreigners wanting to work in Japan, one of the most common paths into the country is through a Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa. Among other professions, it’s the visa issued to foreign nationals working as English teachers, either as ALTs at regular schools for Japanese children or at for-adults eikaiwa/conversational English schools.

According to a report from nonprofit organization Kyodo, citing sources related to the decision-making process, the Japanese government will be adding a new requirement to the application process that may make it much more difficult to acquire: Japanese language proficiency.

Currently, the primary requirement to obtain an Engineer or Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa is a university degree or sufficient work experience in the field of employment. Japanese language skills aren’t part of the evaluation criteria, and with Japanese employers often handling much of the paperwork filing for obtaining the foreign worker’s visa, through the Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa it’s possible to get a job in Japan without speaking even a word of Japanese. Under the new system, though, applicants would be required to have Japanese language skills equivalent to the N2 level of the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, or the B2 level of the CEFR standards.

While not full-on fluency, those are also by no means easy-to-acquire Japanese language skills. They’re not the sort of ability you can reach by taking a semester or two of intro-level Japanese class at your home-country college. Assuming you’ve got other work/educational responsibilities that prevent you from going to language school full-time, you’re probably looking at two years or more to get up to N2-level proficiency. As such, the new requirement has the potential to shut the door on a lot of plans to move to Japan for work right after college graduation unless you’ve been putting in some serious study time already.

There are, however, a few reasons to hold off on panicking if you’ve been dreaming of moving to Japan. First, it’s currently unclear if the requirement of N2/B2-level proficiency would require applicants to have passed those tests, or if alternative proof of proficiency, such as college credits in Japanese language classes, would be accepted. The language proficiency requirement would also only be required for those applying for the Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services as part of their initial entry into Japan. The requirement would be waived for foreigners currently in Japan on student visas applying to transition directly into Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services status.

Also, the Japanese language proficiency requirement will reportedly only be applied for foreigners “entering into jobs where Japanese is used.” That, though, raises as-yet unanswered questions of what the criteria will be to determine if “Japanese is used” as part of a job. Would an English teacher’s job be seen as “using Japanese” if the school’s administrators, or the parents of the students they teach, communicate in Japanese? Would an engineer, whose regular work is largely technical in nature, be considered to have a “uses Japanese” job if clients communicate with the company in Japanese?

According to the source, the new requirement was prompted by numerous instances of foreign workers entering Japan on Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services but then working in unskilled labor roles, a violation of the visa terms. At first it might seem hard to see how raising visa requirements would reduce the number of foreigners working in unskilled labor positions, but, while not mentioned in the Kyodo report, there are likely two things the Japanese government hopes to accomplish through stricter standards.

Taken at face-value and in good faith, requiring that foreigners coming to Japan for jobs that require them to actually be able to use Japanese would be a logical and reasonable way to prevent situations where a foreigner comes to Japan, can’t do the job they came here to do, and ends up in a sector they aren’t authorized to work in (unskilled labor has its own separate, stricter immigration policies and procedures). In addition, by shrinking the candidate pool and making its average resume stronger, requiring Japanese proficiency would make it harder, and more expensive, for unscrupulous Japanese employers to bring workers to Japan on Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visas for jobs that are actually unskilled labor.

At the same time, significantly raising the visa requirements for language teaching positions would have major implications for ALT and eikaiwa staffing. Most jobs in those sectors are entry-level, low-paying positions, and many applicants have relatively low language skills upon their arrival in Japan, with the opportunity to acclimate to the local language often a major point of attraction in offsetting an unimpressive salary. If organizations looking for ALT and eikaiwa teachers suddenly have to limit their hiring to candidates who already have N2-level Japanese language proficiency, they may find it difficult to secure a sufficient number of workers, especially within their current budgets.

The new visa requirement would come amidst a growing governmental/societal sentiment in Japan that improved Japanese language skills are going to be crucial in harmonious integration of the growing foreign population into Japanese society, with Japanese language proficiency being considered as a new requirement for those seeking permanent residency in the country.

A formal announcement of the new visa requirement is expected to be made later this month.

Source: 47 News/Kyodo via Livedoor News
Top image: Pakutaso (edited by SoraNews24)
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