Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

asia.nikkei.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 168 posts

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#81

Post by jk2323 »

weiming wrote: post #22

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/ [2] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_leaflet...

"but Japan also took steps to make immigration easier for skilled workers with the Highly-Skilled "

Why go to Japan? Every idiot and his brother can now come to Germany thanks to Merkel, the German chancelor. You don't have to be skilled, just come. Free boarding, free food, free healthcare and cash. Money for nothing and the chicks for free....

https://www.timesofisrael.com/outrage-and-questions-about-po...

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#82

Post by jacobush »

jpatokal wrote: post #68
the_new_guy29 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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%.

Are they heavily banking on robots making up for demographics?

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#83

Post by bojo »

victor106 wrote: post #41

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

It's pretty terrible. Here are some personal data points in rough USD equivalency:

- Lead developer for social mobile game company in 2010 - $3,500/mo

- Brief stint at another game company in 2012 for a few months - $4,200/mo

- (Remote work for non-JP companies)

- Lead infrastructure and technical leader for mobile game company in 2016 - $6,000/mo - although I was arguably able to push that high (that is considered relatively high here) due to both the technical and Japanese speaking experience I built up over the years.

The rule of thumb is typically: (age * 100) + 500~1000 "you must be a creative thinking foreigner" bonus

Non-game industries are slightly better paying, however, here is the catch: The entire IT industry has organically standardized on 10am-7pm work hours. Depending on your company and how much you are willing to not play the overtime game, there are expectations of up to an extra 45 hours per month of unpaid OT, so if you don't hold your ground you could be coming home on the last train.

The actual experiences were great. Loved the people I worked with, learned a lot. However, if you are coming from somewhere that pays US-level salaries, prepare to be surprised at your offer.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#84

Post by [deleted] »

jpatokal wrote: post #66
weiming wrote: post #22

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/ [2] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_leaflet...

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.nippo…

[deleted]

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#85

Post by buckminster »

InfiniteBeing wrote: post #80
mikekchar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time this pops up, I feel compelled to point out that in the 8 years I've lived in Japan (over a 10 year period), I haven't found this to be true. There is racism in Japan, just like everywhere. When I lived in Canada, I saw a sales manager where I was working throwing how CVs with Indian names. I asked him what he was doing. "There's no point in hiring someone whose name I can't even pronounce", was the reply.…

Well, a lot of the problems people in the USA have with certain groups has to do with those same cultural reasons.

The problem is that the USA has never had anything like a single homogenous culture but some groups like to pretend that it has.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#86

Post by icelancer »

volgo wrote: post #21
majos wrote: post #2

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 la…

> 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.

>> The correct modern terminology for that is racism.

Yes, Westerners call it this. And in our eyes, it is. Japanese don't particularly buy that brand of shame, though.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#87

Post by icelancer »

jaredklewis wrote: post #75
bobthepanda wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that in the West we generally do not use ethnicity or race as a criteria to deny people things as official policy. Affirmative action, for example, just makes it more likely for certain people to get picked out of a general qualifying pool, but it doesn't disqualify non-preferred people out of hand.

When is race used to deny people things in Japan?

Huh? How about trying to rent property. Landlords overwhelmingly deny non-Nihojin non-salarymen.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#88

Post by icelancer »

weiming wrote: post #28
volgo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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?

>> Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences?

It is both a place worth visiting and also full of what we would call racism. The overly-politically correct crowd in America would be (and often are) shocked at what passes for acceptable race-related behavior in Japan.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#89

Post by icelancer »

mikekchar wrote: post #61
volgo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Every time this pops up, I feel compelled to point out that in the 8 years I've lived in Japan (over a 10 year period), I haven't found this to be true. There is racism in Japan, just like everywhere. When I lived in Canada, I saw a sales manager where I was working throwing how CVs with Indian names. I asked him what he was doing. "There's no point in hiring someone whose name I can't even pronounce", was the reply.…

>> The if part is hard, though, and I've seen many people run into the brick wall that is Japanese culture.

True. But the knee-jerk reaction by Westerners is to call it racism, which it isn't, just like the majority of things called racist.

Re: Famous for its resistance to immigration, Japan opens its doors

#90

Post by icelancer »

Semirhage wrote: post #53
zeth___ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to where? Most of the world is China, India and Africa. The rest of the developed world is vastly better than Japan when it comes to treating immigrants better.

The experience of being a westerner in China is much worse than in Japan IME. I can’t speak for India or the continent of Africa, but in the latter case I’d guess that it varies widely by country.

I've enjoyed my time in China much more than Japan as a "westerner," and I'm Japanese-American.
Post reply on HN