Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home

Thu Apr 23 15:12:42 UTC 2009

April 23, 2009
Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
By HIROKO TABUCHI

HAMAMATSU, Japan — Rita Yamaoka, a mother of three who immigrated from
Brazil, recently lost her factory job here. Now, Japan has made her an
offer she might not be able to refuse. The government will pay
thousands of dollars to fly Mrs. Yamaoka; her husband, who is a
Brazilian citizen of Japanese descent; and their family back to
Brazil. But in exchange, Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband must agree never
to seek to work in Japan again. “I feel immense stress. I’ve been
crying very often,” Mrs. Yamaoka, 38, said after a meeting where local
officials detailed the offer in this industrial town in central Japan.

“I tell my husband that we should take the money and go back,” she
said, her eyes teary. “We can’t afford to stay here much longer.”
Japan’s offer, extended to hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Latin
American immigrants, is part of a new drive to encourage them to leave
this recession-racked country. So far, at least 100 workers and their
families have agreed to leave, Japanese officials said.  But critics
denounce the program as shortsighted, inhumane and a threat to what
little progress Japan has made in opening its economy to foreign
workers.  “It’s a disgrace. It’s cold-hearted,” said Hidenori
Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, an
independent research organization.

“And Japan is kicking itself in the foot,” he added. “We might be in a
recession now, but it’s clear it doesn’t have a future without workers
from overseas.”  The program is limited to the country’s Latin
American guest workers, whose Japanese parents and grandparents
emigrated to Brazil and neighboring countries a century ago to work on
coffee plantations. In 1990, Japan — facing a growing industrial labor
shortage — started issuing thousands of special work visas to
descendants of these emigrants. An estimated 366,000 Brazilians and
Peruvians now live in Japan.

The guest workers quickly became the largest group of foreign
blue-collar workers in an otherwise immigration-averse country,
filling the so-called three-K jobs (kitsui, kitanai, kiken — hard,
dirty and dangerous). But the nation’s manufacturing sector has
slumped as demand for Japanese goods evaporated, pushing unemployment
to a three-year high of 4.4 percent. Japan’s exports plunged 45.6
percent in March from a year earlier, and industrial production is at
its lowest level in 25 years. New data from the Japanese trade
ministry suggested manufacturing output could rise in March and April,
as manufacturers start to ease production cuts. But the numbers could
have more to do with inventories falling so low that they need to be
replenished than with any increase in demand.

While Japan waits for that to happen, it has been keen to help foreign
workers leave, which could ease pressure on domestic labor markets and
the unemployment rolls.  “There won’t be good employment opportunities
for a while, so that’s why we’re suggesting that the Nikkei Brazilians
go home,” said Jiro Kawasaki, a former health minister and senior
lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. “Nikkei” visas are
special visas granted because of Japanese ancestry or association.
Mr. Kawasaki led the ruling party task force that devised the
repatriation plan, part of a wider emergency strategy to combat rising
unemployment.

Under the emergency program, introduced this month, the country’s
Brazilian and other Latin American guest workers are offered $3,000
toward air fare, plus $2,000 for each dependent — attractive lump sums
for many immigrants here. Workers who leave have been told they can
pocket any amount left over.  But those who travel home on Japan’s
dime will not be allowed to reapply for a work visa. Stripped of that
status, most would find it all but impossible to return. They could
come back on three-month tourist visas. Or, if they became doctors or
bankers or held certain other positions, and had a company sponsor,
they could apply for professional visas.

Spain, with a unemployment rate of 15.5 percent, has adopted a similar
program, but immigrants are allowed to reclaim their residency and
work visas after three years. Japan is under pressure to allow
returns. Officials have said they will consider such a modification,
but have not committed to it. “Naturally, we don’t want those same
people back in Japan after a couple of months,” Mr. Kawasaki said.
“Japanese taxpayers would ask, ‘What kind of ridiculous policy is
this?’ ” The plan came as a shock to many, especially after the
government introduced a number of measures in recent months to help
jobless foreigners, including free Japanese-language courses,
vocational training and job counseling. Guest workers are eligible for
limited cash unemployment benefits, provided they have paid monthly
premiums.

“It’s baffling,” said Angelo Ishi, an associate professor in sociology
at Musashi University in Tokyo. “The Japanese government has
previously made it clear that they welcome Japanese-Brazilians, but
this is an insult to the community.”  It could also hurt Japan in the
long run. The aging country faces an impending labor shortage. The
population has been falling since 2005, and its working-age population
could fall by a third by 2050. Though manufacturers have been laying
off workers, sectors like farming and care for the elderly still face
shortages. But Mr. Kawasaki said the economic slump was a good
opportunity to overhaul Japan’s immigration policy as a whole.

“We should stop letting unskilled laborers into Japan. We should make
sure that even the three-K jobs are paid well, and that they are
filled by Japanese,” he said. “I do not think that Japan should ever
become a multiethnic society.” He said the United States had been “a
failure on the immigration front,” and cited extreme income
inequalities between rich Americans and poor immigrants.  At the
packed town hall meeting in Hamamatsu, immigrants voiced disbelief
that they would be barred from returning. Angry members of the
audience converged on officials. Others walked out of the meeting
room.

“Are you saying even our children will not be able to come back?” one
man shouted.  “That is correct, they will not be able to come back,” a
local labor official, Masahiro Watai, answered calmly.  Claudio
Nishimori, 30, said he was considering returning to Brazil because his
shifts at a electronics parts factory were recently reduced. But he
felt anxious about going back to a country he had left so long ago.
“I’ve lived in Japan for 13 years. I’m not sure what job I can find
when I return to Brazil,” he said. But his wife has been unemployed
since being laid off last year and he can no longer afford to support
his family.

Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband, Sergio, who settled here three years ago
at the height of the export boom, are undecided. But they have both
lost jobs at auto factories. Others have made up their minds to leave.
About 1,000 of Hamamatsu’s Brazilian inhabitants left the city before
the aid was even announced. The city’s Brazilian elementary school
closed last month.  “They put up with us as long as they needed the
labor,” said Wellington Shibuya, who came six years ago and lost his
job at a stove factory in October. “But now that the economy is bad,
they throw us a bit of cash and say goodbye.”

He recently applied for the government repatriation aid and is set to
leave in June. “We worked hard; we tried to fit in. Yet they’re so
quick to kick us out,” he said. “I’m happy to leave a country like
this.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/global/23immigrant.html?_r=1&ref=world
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