Editorials Feb 10, 2015
If Japan needs foreign workers to fill its manpower needs, the government should consider a new system of accepting such labor on a longer-term basis rather than under the guise of an technical internship program.
National / Social Issues Jan 30, 2015
Oversight body proposed for Japan's troubled foreign trainee program
An oversight body is proposed to address the human rights abuses reportedly rife in Japan’s suspect Foreign Training Internship Program.
National Jan 24, 2015
Japan looks to accept more foreign nursing care workers to resolve labor shortage
The health ministry released a draft plan Friday to include nursing care under the technical intern training program for foreigners to help increase foreign care workers and resolve related labor shortages in Japan. The draft plan for consideration by a panel of experts comes after ...
Business Nov 23, 2014
Foreign workers in demand amid tourism surge
by Junji Yamaguchi
Demand for foreign workers has been strong in Japan over the past few years as the number of foreign tourists rises and an increasing number of domestic companies aim to expand their business abroad. Since its establishment in 2004, Globalpower Inc., a Tokyo-based staffing agency ...
National Oct 29, 2014
Invite foreign interns to settle in Japan, think tank says
by Tomohiro Osaki
The government should replace its controversial foreigners' trainee program with a system that invites interns from abroad to settle in Japan, a Tokyo think tank says.
National | FOCUS Aug 13, 2014
Japan's foreign trainee program suffering from shocking lack of oversight
Agencies that dispatch non-Japanese as interns under the government's foreign trainee program, as well as a government-commissioned foundation that supervises and instructs them, put corporate profits first and are not fulfilling their oversight responsibilities, lawyers familiar with the program say. The program has long been ...
National Jul 18, 2014
Tanigaki vows internship revamp, foreign-friendly policies
by Tomohiro Osaki
Addressing the foreign press, Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki on Thursday reaffirmed his commitment to revamping the foreign trainee program, which critics say is rife with human rights violations. Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, Tanigaki trumpeted a range of initiatives Japan is undertaking ...
National / Social Issues Jun 12, 2014
Interns abused as labor crisis grows
by Antoni Slodkowski
Wednesday was a regular work day at rusting Burberry factory Kameda Co. in Ishikawa Prefecture, but for three Chinese women, it was a day of escape.
National Apr 2, 2014
Japan moves to expand controversial foreign worker scheme
by Antoni Slodkowski
Japan is considering expanding a controversial program that now offers workers from China and elsewhere permits to work for up to three years, as the world's fastest-aging nation scrambles to plug gaps in a rapidly shrinking workforce. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party on ...
National Jan 16, 2014
Man arrested for pocketing salaries of illegal Cambodian trainees
Police said Thursday they have arrested a man on suspicion of pocketing around ¥5 million from the salaries of Cambodians working illegally in Japan as trainees. Hirokazu Inatomi, 64, a former senior official of the Inaho cooperative union in Shimotsuma, Ibaraki Prefecture, allegedly told five ...
National Apr 20, 2013
Oversight of foreign trainee program a joke: internal affairs ministry
Most of the abuses committed against foreigners in the name of technological training are overlooked when the companies are audited, the internal affairs ministry reveals.
Reference | EXPLAINER Apr 9, 2013
Japan's foreign trainee system said still plagued by rights abuses
by Masami Ito
Last month, a Chinese trainee went on a stabbing rampage at a Hiroshima Prefecture seafood company where he worked, killing the president and an employee and wounding six others. The man had been a trainee at the oyster-processing plant as part of a government-authorized technical ...