foreign trainees

Recently the topic of foreign trainees came up for discussion on the Community in Japan list. I've blogged a lot on this topic previously.

Let me give a very opionated response to the recent news surrounding the trainee program.

I want to present some data on the trainee system in Japan. Most information here pertains to both the Industrial Trainee Program and the Technical Internship Program.

The source of this information is cited at the end of this blog entry.

Particular attention here will be applied to JITCO (Japan International Training Cooperation Organization) trainees.

Article: Foreign trainees or slaves? (Nov 13, 2006)

Source: Japan Today

Author: Terrie Lloyd

Notes from article:

1. A Yomiuri article noted in November that a company in Akitakata was padding its employee numbers so that they could hire more foreign trainees. The foreign trainees were 50% cheaper than regular employees.

Reading notes for "Migration, globalization and the nation state, Japan" by Yoko Sellek, from The Political Economy of Japanese Globalization edited Hasegawa Harukiyo and Glenn D. Hook, published by Routledge, 2001.

Article: Migration News Vol. 14 No. 1: Japan, Korea Source: Migration News 1.

Notes on Reluctant Hosts: The Future of Japan as a Country of Immigration by Takeyuki Tsuda (pdf). [The link to the article now turns up a blank page. Not sure if this is a temporary problem or somethign permanent.

Notes from "Foreign Workers and Immigration Policy" by Hirowatari Seigo from The Political Economy of Japanese Society Vol. 2 edited by Banno Junji; Oxford University Press, 1998, pages 99 to

Notes from Challenges for Foreign Traineeship Programs in Japan by Yasushi Iguchi.

1. In the early 1990's Japan was accepting about 40,000 trainees a year. About 25% of these trainees were funded by the government. The rest were private.

Notes from The Politics of Foreign Labor Policy in Korea and Japan by Yong Wook Lee and Hyemee Pari. Published in Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 35, 2005.

1. Sourth Korea (Korea) was traditionally a non-immigration country.

2. As Korea grew into a more developed economy, small and medium sized companies began to make more use of unskilled laborers from other countries. Rights abuses became widespread. In particular this was prevalent among illegal foreign workers.

Reading notes for Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective edited by Wayne A. Cornelius, published 1994 by Stanford University Press. (Note, there is a more recent edition of the book.) These notes cover pages 397 to 400 from Chapter 11, which covers Japan and is written by the editor of the book.