Category: Immigration

Japan plans to extend long-term visa permits to five years from the current three when it changes the registration system for foreigners living in Japan, public broadcaster NHK reported. The Justice Ministry also plans to simplify the re-entry process for returning foreign residents, NHK reported on its English-language Web site, without saying where it obtained…

SKILLED FOREIGN WORKERS TARGETED Conditions for resident visa status of skilled foreign workers such as engineers may be relaxed if they attain a certain level of proficiency in Japanese, government sources said Monday. The measures, including shortening the required number of years of work experience required, are being considered both to increase the variety of…

A dispute has erupted between a group of Chinese apprentices and strawberry farms in Japan after one farm sacked a group of students and tried to force them to leave the country.A total of 15 apprentices have fled from the farm operators and are demanding a total of about 52.25 million yen in unpaid wages…

JAPAN’S POPULATION DECLINE “By 2050, Japan’s population will have shrunk from the current 127 million to about 90 million, and to about 40 million by the end of the century. By my calculations, we need 10 million new immigrants by midcentury to survive as a nation,” Hidenori Sakanaka, former head of the Tokyo Regional Immigration…

May lead to better services, more control Under the new system, long-term foreign residents will get registration cards at airports and local immigration offices, which will then be used to register their information at local governments. The data will be controlled in a similar manner as for Japanese citizens, and used to compile information for…

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Justice have decided to abolish the Alien Registration Act’s system of residence administration, and adopt a register system similar to the basic resident register system for Japanese, it has been learned.Registration of foreigners under the act, which formerly involved fingerprinting, will end and certificates…

Japan is looking to tighten controls on foreign residents to crack down on undocumented aliens and ensure that all households receive public services, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said Friday. Japan largely sees itself as ethnically homogeneous and has consistently rejected wide-scale immigration despite having one of the world’s lowest birth rates. It requires foreign residents…

Kazuo Kitagawa, secretary-general of ruling coalition partner Komeito, has voiced support for opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Ichiro Ozawa’s suggestion of considering submitting a bill to give foreigners with permanent residence status the right to vote in local elections.”I would like a bill to be compiled and submitted,” Kitagawa said of the proposed…

Local governments in central Honshu unveiled a charter on Monday urging companies to help foreign workers adapt to Japanese society, officials said. The Aichi, Gifu and Mie prefectural governments as well as the Nagoya Municipal Government have worked out the charter in cooperation with local business organizations including the Chubu Economic Federation. The six-point charter…