24 ms·

Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

189 points by phront 8y ago

majos 8y ago
I wonder what percentage of these immigrants are ethnically east/southeast Asian, or even ethnically Japanese. I imagine a large portion of the Peruvian and Brazilian immigrants shown in the chart have Japanese ancestry (I believe Japanese ancestry makes immigration from those countries easier -- to the extent that one point there was a black market in being adopted as an adult by Japanese people -- and there is a large, old Japanese emigrant community in both countries). It's a somewhat crass question. But ethnicity, not just nationality, seems to matter a lot in Japan.
- iguy 8y ago
  TFA has a figure showing that just over half is China + Korea + Vietnam. Brazil + Peru are about 11%, it would indeed be interesting to know the breakdown there. Amused by the line "No party has embraced xenophobia", used here to mean, apparently, that all parties agree on policies which would be sufficient to get you branded as xenophobes in the west. Or rather, to mean that there's no shouting match over the issue.
  - thomasfortes 8y ago
    Can't say about Peru, but the second and third generation Japanese community here in Brazil is massive and stories of some of them going to work/live at Japan are common.
    - iguy 8y ago
      Any anecdata about how open this is to neighbours of non-Japanese descent? For example if there are Japanese schools (are there?) do they admit lots of others, and do such students (or half- or quater-Japanese ones) get treated as insiders? I knew there was a huge community but know very little about it.
      - thomasfortes 8y ago
        Inside our country? Don't know about japanese exclusive schools, Liberdade¹ is the biggest japanese community outside of Japan, but I don't think that there's any restrictions about students or anything like that in the schools of the district, Brazil has an immense amount of diversity, japanese brazilians are mostly treated the same as any other brazilians and are for the most part integrated in our country general culture. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberdade_(district_of_São_Paulo) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberdade_(district_of_São_Pau...
- volgo 8y ago
  > But ethnicity, not just nationality, seems to matter a lot in Japan The correct modern terminology for that is racism. Something most people don't know a lot about, because as a culture Japanese tend to be very outwardly polite so a lot of racism is very subtle and can't be spotted by someone who's just visiting.
  - weiming 8y ago
    I find it funny that most of Western sentiment about Japan is very boolean: it's either "Japan is a mythical, enchanting land you must visit, great food and lovely people" or "Japan has a rapidly aging population, things are tough, and they are also racist." Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences?
    - volgo 8y ago
      A boolean opinion would be saying whether Japan is "good" or "bad" as a whole. I was commenting specifically on the racism issue. They have amazing technological advancements, but have a major problem as a culture with racism. The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue.
      - weiming 8y ago
        > The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue. I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist.
        rohit2412 8y ago
        I think generalizing to a population shouldn't be racist. However, judging a Japanese individual based on expected stereotypes even without the said person showing it should be termed racist
        Pyxl101 8y ago
        > I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist. Would it be racist to say that slavery in the pre-Civil War United States south was a societal issue? Or to say that racism in Nazi Germany against Jews was a societal issue? I don't think so. (I give these example to demonstrate that there is some line a society can cross where you'd hopefully agree it's an issue.) I don't know whether the claims are true or not about Japan, but I don't think it's inherently racist against the Japanese to claim that xenophobia or racism are societal issue there. To believe that all such accusations are inherently racist is to believe in a form of moral relativism in which no society can ever be justifiably called racist.
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  Permanent immigration is still closed off for the vast majority, except for IT workers and the articles quotes companies that hired mostly Chinese/Indian engineers for those positions. Every other career is limited to 5-10 years stay in Japan with restrictions on staying with an employer and difficulties in bringing a spouse and how much that spouse can work once there - it's much more of a temporary thing as described in the article versus paths available to immigrants to the USA. The employers describe the immigrants in entry level jobs in the same way one hears USA farmers describing migrant farmworkers in comparison to the native population here - harder working and more dependable than natives, the similarity is striking.
  - jaredklewis 8y ago
    > Every other career is limited to 5-10 years stay in Japan with restrictions on staying with an employer and difficulties in bringing a spouse and how much that spouse can work once there - it's much more of a temporary thing as described in the article versus paths available to immigrants to the USA. I know people in Tokyo with working visas who are architects, waiters, dish washers, cooks, English teachers, academics, programmers, International school teachers, translators, and business people. All have working (not spousal/relative visas) and none of them have a visa tied to an employer. I have never heard of a visa in Japan tied to an employer (and none of my working visas ever were), with exception of the intra-company transfers. I also think the path to permanent residency is relatively straight forward for all groups. Stay on a working visa 10+ years with no hiccups or long periods of unemployment, then apply. I have known plenty of non-IT workers to get it.
    - lovemenot 8y ago
      That figure of 10 years for a probably successful permanent residency application is out of date. It's apparently more like 5 years these days.
      - jaredklewis 8y ago
        Interesting. I know a guy that got it in 6 but he was married to a Japanese, so I wasn’t sure if that figured in somehow.
coretx 8y ago
So it seems not even a nuke can kill Japanese fascism.
- remyrylan 8y ago
  Why is that a bad thing? Every single race or culture has a right to want to preserve itself. Maybe you have some personal issues you need to work out before you go off projecting self hatred onto other cultures.
  - cup 8y ago
    What is a race?
    - remyrylan 8y ago
      [deleted]
      - dang 8y ago
        You've managed to break at least half a dozen of the site guidelines with your recent comments. That's not cool, and we ban accounts that do this. So we'd appreciate it if you'd please read them and follow them when posting here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - krapp 8y ago
    >Every single race has a right to want to preserve itself and it's culture. "Japanese" isn't a race, and culture isn't a function of racial identity. If these things were true, then American culture would belong only to one race, and it clearly doesn't.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
      - deleted 8y ago
forkLding 8y ago
Not surprised, this is what happens when you "close" off immigration, aging population, have a decrease in new births, restrict most immigrant workers/immigrants to temporary visas/temporary work terms despite length of stay and have a politically conservative mentality towards immigrants. You either invest into more technologies that allow for less labour input or you basically have to somehow increase labour input. Moreover, Japan's mentality against foreign trainees/interns have led to criticisms from U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons because they are essentially being used as unofficial farm workers despite advertising it as a technical (technical as in dealing with machines) training or internship program without real oversight into working conditions and overwork without pay: https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Abuses-rampant-in-foreign-trainee-program-Japan-labor-ministry-finds https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Abuses-ramp...
- the_new_guy29 8y ago
  They are still closed for 99% of people who would like to immmigrate there. They only need highly skilled profesionals, not masses for cheap. Best part is Japan just doesn't care if other countries see it as racist nation - they still get going strong. And im 100% sure if anyone if going to find a solution to ever growing needs of capitalism without immigration it would be them.
  - jpatokal 8y ago
    Well, Japan's spiral of depopulation means they actually do need masses of people, and they're importing them too via all sorts of dodgy trainee visas etc to staff convenience stores, hotel front desks, construction sites, lettuce farms etc. It's just politically impossible to support permanent immigration for anybody but the 1%.
    - jacobush 8y ago
      Are they heavily banking on robots making up for demographics?
ThrustVectoring 8y ago
Even with a more open system for legally accepting immigrants, Japan has an extraordinarily closed system for culturally accepting immigrants. An immigrant to Japan is considered an outsider to much more of an extent than other countries.
- ShabbosGoy 8y ago
  And it is a lifelong stigmatization as well. You will never be one of them, no matter how hard you try.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - iguy 8y ago
    You can never ever become Chinese either. Nor Indian. Nor Nigerian. Nor Russian. Never mind Kuwaiti. The exception here is the west, both in terminology used for people originating elsewhere, and in actual beliefs. [You, personally, may possibly have one exception on this list, roughly if you come from the edge of one of these, but never more.]
    - ikeyany 8y ago
      How so? The west is well-known for treating ethnic minorities as the "other". I don't think your opinion is very common among them.
      - xkcd-sucks 8y ago
        The state sanctioned Chinese language literally does not have a word for "ethnicnically foreign permanent resident/citizen of China"
        thaumasiotes 8y ago
        That would sound a little more convincing if you hadn't taken six words to define the concept in English.
weiming 8y ago
The article doesn't mention, but Japan also took steps to make immigration easier for skilled workers with the Highly-Skilled Foreign Professional visa [1] based on this point system [2]. Can even qualify for permanent residency in as little as one year if you score 80+ points. [1] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ [2] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_leaflet.pdf http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_leaflet...
- Bombthecat 8y ago
  Hmm interesting.but it looks like they are only interested in young doctors and researchers. Not in professional workers, at least when you use the Excel, or is there an other way to calculate the points?
  - weiming 8y ago
    You can switch between sheets/tabs in the Excel doc. There are three eligible categories: researchers, specialized/technical (like software), and business managers.
    - Bombthecat 8y ago
      Oh thanks, opened it on mobile. Will check out again.
- jpatokal 8y ago
  The problem is that the points requirements are too high for the type of young entrepreneurial people Japan wants to attract, and Japan itself is not attractive for the high rollers of the professional or scientific world that would qualify. In the 5+ years since it was rolled out, the number of successful applicants is less than 5000, most of whom were apparently Chinese nationals already in Japan. https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00304/ https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00304/
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
HillaryBriss 8y ago
The system described here appears to be quite a bit more selective and limited than that found in the US. Permission to live and work in Japan is temporary in the vast majority of cases. > ... discussions have centered around issues such as how many temporary workers should be allowed in and for how many years, rather than the longer-term question of whether Japan needs permanent immigration > One of the biggest difficulties has to do with restrictions on allowing family members to accompany workers -- a move designed to prevent permanent immigration. > The government's program requires trainees to stay with the same employer for three years ... Trainees are discouraged from going back to their country before finishing the three-year term or from having a child, and they cannot bring their spouse on the visa.
victor106 8y ago
Anyone here know how much a typical (I know its hard to qualify a 'typical' programmer) gets paid in Japan compared to the US?
- gkanai 8y ago
  You can't make a apples to apples comparison because the legal systems are different (employees have more protections in Japan) but in a typical Japanese software development position (not a place like Google Japan) you can expect salaries at 60-70% of what you might see in the US. I actually don't think it's the salaries that are the problem- I think it's harder to fit into the culture of a Japanese firm than the lower salaries.
- jaredklewis 8y ago
  People I know at big international companies make between $80k and $150k. People I know at Japanese companies and startups make between $40k and $80k. This is based on a very small sample size of people in Tokyo...
  - cdavid 8y ago
    If we are talking total comp, this is somewhat the range I have observed as well. There are Japanese companies where you can expect 80k+ with only a few years of relevant experience. If you have some specialties in demand and are good at it (e.g. Machine Learning/Deep Learning), you can get more. In international companies, as purely a software engineer, you can go above 150k total comp. If you want to make more, you want to go toward sales/marketing/etc. In that aspect, it is a bit like Europe where staying technical locks you very quickly. A good sales/marketing person can make 200k+, but that would of course require excellent Japanese skills. [edit] Source: I am managing a machine learning group in a startup in Tokyo and manage the hiring of my team.
- pheon 8y ago
  Peanuts. Japans labor market structure is based on the army/military mode of operation. Imagine your skilled with a riffle because.. you like to shoot stuff out on the farm. Sign up for the army and you will be shipped to bootcamp where they teach you how to shoot "correctly", polish your shoes and make your bed and most importantly chain of command. Note: commanding office says jump, you say how high. You have your platoon where everyone entered at the same time, your all buddies, get shat on by the peps one year ahead of you and everyone progress at the same pace. Note: skill as a good shot has no relevance to your rank and pay. After you have put in time you can advanced in rank and thus pay. Get married / kids theres additional benefits. Note: your rank and pay are directly related to years of service. Unlike the army, you will not get any medals, heroics of jumping on a grenade to save the team are frowned upon. Its better to hold a meeting with the team, to clarify what the grenade is, check all possible outcomes, investigate every tiny detail by which time everyone is dead. Key point is everyone, the dead part is largely irrelevant. After some time, your buddies seem to like you and your leading the platoon. Congratulations you have now advanced your career to the fast track lane. Moving slightly faster than your peers as they are "workers" and not management. Note: fast track has nothing to do with your shooting skill. .. and so on and so on. source: lived and worked Tokyo for 10+ years.
brandelune 8y ago
"It will also be possible for trainees to extend their stay for up to 10 years." Basically a way to cut wages forever.
dzonga 8y ago
reverse centuries of gains and progress, because you wanted to be homogenous country. it might take up to a generation to reverse the damage that has been done. social aspects and orders have been lost e.g veggie men - no desire to breed. what most people forget is foreigners bring new ideas and vibrancy.
eruci 8y ago
People are divided into two kinds: useful and useless. Wooing the first type is the reasonable thing to do.

189 points by phront 8y ago

I wonder what percentage of these immigrants are ethnically east/southeast Asian, or even ethnically Japanese. I imagine a large portion of the Peruvian and Brazilian immigrants shown in the chart have Japanese ancestry (I believe Japanese ancestry makes immigration from those countries easier -- to the extent that one point there was a black market in being adopted as an adult by Japanese people -- and there is a large, old Japanese emigrant community in both countries). It's a somewhat crass question. But ethnicity, not just nationality, seems to matter a lot in Japan.

iguy 8y ago
TFA has a figure showing that just over half is China + Korea + Vietnam. Brazil + Peru are about 11%, it would indeed be interesting to know the breakdown there. Amused by the line "No party has embraced xenophobia", used here to mean, apparently, that all parties agree on policies which would be sufficient to get you branded as xenophobes in the west. Or rather, to mean that there's no shouting match over the issue.
- thomasfortes 8y ago
  Can't say about Peru, but the second and third generation Japanese community here in Brazil is massive and stories of some of them going to work/live at Japan are common.
  - iguy 8y ago
    Any anecdata about how open this is to neighbours of non-Japanese descent? For example if there are Japanese schools (are there?) do they admit lots of others, and do such students (or half- or quater-Japanese ones) get treated as insiders? I knew there was a huge community but know very little about it.
    - thomasfortes 8y ago
      Inside our country? Don't know about japanese exclusive schools, Liberdade¹ is the biggest japanese community outside of Japan, but I don't think that there's any restrictions about students or anything like that in the schools of the district, Brazil has an immense amount of diversity, japanese brazilians are mostly treated the same as any other brazilians and are for the most part integrated in our country general culture. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberdade_(district_of_São_Paulo) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberdade_(district_of_São_Pau...
volgo 8y ago
> But ethnicity, not just nationality, seems to matter a lot in Japan The correct modern terminology for that is racism. Something most people don't know a lot about, because as a culture Japanese tend to be very outwardly polite so a lot of racism is very subtle and can't be spotted by someone who's just visiting.
- weiming 8y ago
  I find it funny that most of Western sentiment about Japan is very boolean: it's either "Japan is a mythical, enchanting land you must visit, great food and lovely people" or "Japan has a rapidly aging population, things are tough, and they are also racist." Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences?
  - volgo 8y ago
    A boolean opinion would be saying whether Japan is "good" or "bad" as a whole. I was commenting specifically on the racism issue. They have amazing technological advancements, but have a major problem as a culture with racism. The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue.
    - weiming 8y ago
      > The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue. I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist.
      - rohit2412 8y ago
        I think generalizing to a population shouldn't be racist. However, judging a Japanese individual based on expected stereotypes even without the said person showing it should be termed racist
      - Pyxl101 8y ago
        > I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist. Would it be racist to say that slavery in the pre-Civil War United States south was a societal issue? Or to say that racism in Nazi Germany against Jews was a societal issue? I don't think so. (I give these example to demonstrate that there is some line a society can cross where you'd hopefully agree it's an issue.) I don't know whether the claims are true or not about Japan, but I don't think it's inherently racist against the Japanese to claim that xenophobia or racism are societal issue there. To believe that all such accusations are inherently racist is to believe in a form of moral relativism in which no society can ever be justifiably called racist.
stevenwoo 8y ago
Permanent immigration is still closed off for the vast majority, except for IT workers and the articles quotes companies that hired mostly Chinese/Indian engineers for those positions. Every other career is limited to 5-10 years stay in Japan with restrictions on staying with an employer and difficulties in bringing a spouse and how much that spouse can work once there - it's much more of a temporary thing as described in the article versus paths available to immigrants to the USA. The employers describe the immigrants in entry level jobs in the same way one hears USA farmers describing migrant farmworkers in comparison to the native population here - harder working and more dependable than natives, the similarity is striking.
- jaredklewis 8y ago
  > Every other career is limited to 5-10 years stay in Japan with restrictions on staying with an employer and difficulties in bringing a spouse and how much that spouse can work once there - it's much more of a temporary thing as described in the article versus paths available to immigrants to the USA. I know people in Tokyo with working visas who are architects, waiters, dish washers, cooks, English teachers, academics, programmers, International school teachers, translators, and business people. All have working (not spousal/relative visas) and none of them have a visa tied to an employer. I have never heard of a visa in Japan tied to an employer (and none of my working visas ever were), with exception of the intra-company transfers. I also think the path to permanent residency is relatively straight forward for all groups. Stay on a working visa 10+ years with no hiccups or long periods of unemployment, then apply. I have known plenty of non-IT workers to get it.
  - lovemenot 8y ago
    That figure of 10 years for a probably successful permanent residency application is out of date. It's apparently more like 5 years these days.
    - jaredklewis 8y ago
      Interesting. I know a guy that got it in 6 but he was married to a Japanese, so I wasn’t sure if that figured in somehow.

coretx 8y ago

So it seems not even a nuke can kill Japanese fascism.

remyrylan 8y ago
Why is that a bad thing? Every single race or culture has a right to want to preserve itself. Maybe you have some personal issues you need to work out before you go off projecting self hatred onto other cultures.
- cup 8y ago
  What is a race?
  - remyrylan 8y ago
    [deleted]
    - dang 8y ago
      You've managed to break at least half a dozen of the site guidelines with your recent comments. That's not cool, and we ban accounts that do this. So we'd appreciate it if you'd please read them and follow them when posting here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- krapp 8y ago
  >Every single race has a right to want to preserve itself and it's culture. "Japanese" isn't a race, and culture isn't a function of racial identity. If these things were true, then American culture would belong only to one race, and it clearly doesn't.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 8y ago

forkLding 8y ago

Not surprised, this is what happens when you "close" off immigration, aging population, have a decrease in new births, restrict most immigrant workers/immigrants to temporary visas/temporary work terms despite length of stay and have a politically conservative mentality towards immigrants. You either invest into more technologies that allow for less labour input or you basically have to somehow increase labour input. Moreover, Japan's mentality against foreign trainees/interns have led to criticisms from U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons because they are essentially being used as unofficial farm workers despite advertising it as a technical (technical as in dealing with machines) training or internship program without real oversight into working conditions and overwork without pay: https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Abuses-rampant-in-foreign-trainee-program-Japan-labor-ministry-finds https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Abuses-ramp...

the_new_guy29 8y ago
They are still closed for 99% of people who would like to immmigrate there. They only need highly skilled profesionals, not masses for cheap. Best part is Japan just doesn't care if other countries see it as racist nation - they still get going strong. And im 100% sure if anyone if going to find a solution to ever growing needs of capitalism without immigration it would be them.
- jpatokal 8y ago
  Well, Japan's spiral of depopulation means they actually do need masses of people, and they're importing them too via all sorts of dodgy trainee visas etc to staff convenience stores, hotel front desks, construction sites, lettuce farms etc. It's just politically impossible to support permanent immigration for anybody but the 1%.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    Are they heavily banking on robots making up for demographics?

ThrustVectoring 8y ago

Even with a more open system for legally accepting immigrants, Japan has an extraordinarily closed system for culturally accepting immigrants. An immigrant to Japan is considered an outsider to much more of an extent than other countries.

ShabbosGoy 8y ago
And it is a lifelong stigmatization as well. You will never be one of them, no matter how hard you try.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- iguy 8y ago
  You can never ever become Chinese either. Nor Indian. Nor Nigerian. Nor Russian. Never mind Kuwaiti. The exception here is the west, both in terminology used for people originating elsewhere, and in actual beliefs. [You, personally, may possibly have one exception on this list, roughly if you come from the edge of one of these, but never more.]
  - ikeyany 8y ago
    How so? The west is well-known for treating ethnic minorities as the "other". I don't think your opinion is very common among them.
    - xkcd-sucks 8y ago
      The state sanctioned Chinese language literally does not have a word for "ethnicnically foreign permanent resident/citizen of China"
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        That would sound a little more convincing if you hadn't taken six words to define the concept in English.

weiming 8y ago

The article doesn't mention, but Japan also took steps to make immigration easier for skilled workers with the Highly-Skilled Foreign Professional visa [1] based on this point system [2]. Can even qualify for permanent residency in as little as one year if you score 80+ points. [1] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/ [2] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_leaflet.pdf http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_leaflet...

Bombthecat 8y ago
Hmm interesting.but it looks like they are only interested in young doctors and researchers. Not in professional workers, at least when you use the Excel, or is there an other way to calculate the points?
- weiming 8y ago
  You can switch between sheets/tabs in the Excel doc. There are three eligible categories: researchers, specialized/technical (like software), and business managers.
  - Bombthecat 8y ago
    Oh thanks, opened it on mobile. Will check out again.
jpatokal 8y ago
The problem is that the points requirements are too high for the type of young entrepreneurial people Japan wants to attract, and Japan itself is not attractive for the high rollers of the professional or scientific world that would qualify. In the 5+ years since it was rolled out, the number of successful applicants is less than 5000, most of whom were apparently Chinese nationals already in Japan. https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00304/ https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00304/
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

HillaryBriss 8y ago

The system described here appears to be quite a bit more selective and limited than that found in the US. Permission to live and work in Japan is temporary in the vast majority of cases. > ... discussions have centered around issues such as how many temporary workers should be allowed in and for how many years, rather than the longer-term question of whether Japan needs permanent immigration > One of the biggest difficulties has to do with restrictions on allowing family members to accompany workers -- a move designed to prevent permanent immigration. > The government's program requires trainees to stay with the same employer for three years ... Trainees are discouraged from going back to their country before finishing the three-year term or from having a child, and they cannot bring their spouse on the visa.

victor106 8y ago

Anyone here know how much a typical (I know its hard to qualify a 'typical' programmer) gets paid in Japan compared to the US?

gkanai 8y ago
You can't make a apples to apples comparison because the legal systems are different (employees have more protections in Japan) but in a typical Japanese software development position (not a place like Google Japan) you can expect salaries at 60-70% of what you might see in the US. I actually don't think it's the salaries that are the problem- I think it's harder to fit into the culture of a Japanese firm than the lower salaries.
jaredklewis 8y ago
People I know at big international companies make between $80k and $150k. People I know at Japanese companies and startups make between $40k and $80k. This is based on a very small sample size of people in Tokyo...
- cdavid 8y ago
  If we are talking total comp, this is somewhat the range I have observed as well. There are Japanese companies where you can expect 80k+ with only a few years of relevant experience. If you have some specialties in demand and are good at it (e.g. Machine Learning/Deep Learning), you can get more. In international companies, as purely a software engineer, you can go above 150k total comp. If you want to make more, you want to go toward sales/marketing/etc. In that aspect, it is a bit like Europe where staying technical locks you very quickly. A good sales/marketing person can make 200k+, but that would of course require excellent Japanese skills. [edit] Source: I am managing a machine learning group in a startup in Tokyo and manage the hiring of my team.
pheon 8y ago
Peanuts. Japans labor market structure is based on the army/military mode of operation. Imagine your skilled with a riffle because.. you like to shoot stuff out on the farm. Sign up for the army and you will be shipped to bootcamp where they teach you how to shoot "correctly", polish your shoes and make your bed and most importantly chain of command. Note: commanding office says jump, you say how high. You have your platoon where everyone entered at the same time, your all buddies, get shat on by the peps one year ahead of you and everyone progress at the same pace. Note: skill as a good shot has no relevance to your rank and pay. After you have put in time you can advanced in rank and thus pay. Get married / kids theres additional benefits. Note: your rank and pay are directly related to years of service. Unlike the army, you will not get any medals, heroics of jumping on a grenade to save the team are frowned upon. Its better to hold a meeting with the team, to clarify what the grenade is, check all possible outcomes, investigate every tiny detail by which time everyone is dead. Key point is everyone, the dead part is largely irrelevant. After some time, your buddies seem to like you and your leading the platoon. Congratulations you have now advanced your career to the fast track lane. Moving slightly faster than your peers as they are "workers" and not management. Note: fast track has nothing to do with your shooting skill. .. and so on and so on. source: lived and worked Tokyo for 10+ years.

brandelune 8y ago

"It will also be possible for trainees to extend their stay for up to 10 years." Basically a way to cut wages forever.

dzonga 8y ago

reverse centuries of gains and progress, because you wanted to be homogenous country. it might take up to a generation to reverse the damage that has been done. social aspects and orders have been lost e.g veggie men - no desire to breed. what most people forget is foreigners bring new ideas and vibrancy.

eruci 8y ago

People are divided into two kinds: useful and useless. Wooing the first type is the reasonable thing to do.