Immigration Point System

There's a proposed new immigration policy being floated (didn't see the article in Japanese) from the Justice Ministry where Japan would create a "point system" similar to that of Canada for immigrants. The idea is that anything that has value for living in Japan - education, work experience, language skills, Japanese dependants and so on - gives you points, and above a certain threshold you're deemed "valuable" and get preferential treatment for work visas, permanent residency and so on.

It's a good idea. The Canadian system seems to work fairly well. Of course, the Swedish version of it is even simpler: If you've got a job in Sweden, at the same wages and benefits as native Swedes, then you must be of value to the employer and thus to Sweden, so you get a two year work visa. Stay employed for long enough and you get permanent residency.

The good thing about it is that there's no arbitrary determination about who's "valuable" and who's not. If an employer wants to go to the extra effort and expense of bringing in somebody to Sweden at the same salary level as a native Swede then it's because that person really is valuable to them.

The system came about in part because under the old rules a restaurant could usually not hire an Indian chef or a Japanese sushi master because cooks were "manual labour", not specialists, and you were expected to hire Swedish workers for that. If you wanted to, say, open a high-grade sushi restaurant you had to staff it with a Swedish cook who may do smoked salmon and Hollandaise like a god, but likely has no clue about how to prepare sashimi.

Anyway, any opening up of immigration is good. People tend to really overestimate how attractive their country is to foreigners. Japan could probably throw their doors wide open and there'd still be no huge influx of immigrants . The doors have been open for many years to Brazilians of Japanese descent, and while a fair number have come here there was never a rush; the vast majority of potential immigrants obviously prefer to stay where they are.

The same would largely be true for Europe and the US as well. Most people who are determined to enter the US or the EU already do, one way or another. Opening the doors would not really increase those numbers significantly. And completely open immigration would have a counter-effect too: when you know you could move any time, you do so if or when it's convenient, not grasping the first chance you get. Immigrants would in other words be better prepared and better motivated. Whan you can re-enter at any time it's also easier for immigrants to leave if things aren't working out, rather than desperately hanging on.

I know it's a pipe dream, and free movement is never going to happen. It would be nice if it did, though.

"Easier visa for Japanese Speakers" plan announced

I wrote in January about a tentative suggestion that Japanese language ability be counted in your favour when applying for visas.

Now, Asahi Shimbun reports in Japanese and English that a firm plan is being announced today. And it seems it might really be an easing of restrictions as a way to encourage language ability (rather than a roundabout way of imposing further restrictions on those with little language skill). Among other things, the article mentions extending visa durations to five rather than the current three years; and relaxed qualifications for the professional visas. As it happens, the vague rumours of a revamped Japanese Language Proficiency Test seem to be solidifying as well, with documents floating around suggesting the possibility of testing language use in some manner, not just understanding.

Immigration according to MTC

MTC over at Shisaku has a dense, significant, yet pleasantly short post about the reality of work immigration in Japan. No real comment about it from me so far; it offers a cornucopia of possible discussion threads and deserves a far more considered response than I currently can manage. Go check it out.

Work Immigration

There's some interesting developments on work immigration in Sweden. The current government, together with the Green Party, is proposing that anybody, from anywhere, can automatically get a two year work permit if they have employment from a Swedish company. The requirements are that the job be properly advertised within the EU as well and that the job be full-time and come with the union-agreed salary, benefits, job security and all other conditions Swedish employees already get. The two year work permit would be extended another two years if they're still employed, and permanent work residency be granted if they're still employed after four years. Note that especially the benefit requirement - which the unions will be sure to enforce fiercely - really precludes the use of this as a way to dump salaries or import low-wage manual work; taking someone in from abroad will be more expensive than hiring a Swedish resident.

I find this very interesting. First, it acknowledges a reality that is often forgotten in all the frightened rhetoric about immigration: Most people do not want to leave their friends and relatives and move to a different city, never mind a different country - even if it might mean a better job, higher salary and better social safety net. When you leave your friends, relatives and co-workers, you're leaving your entire social and work network behind, and it's through those networks that most people find new jobs, work-related contacts and so on. Leaving that resource behind can often be an economic as well as social net loss even with a better job as incitement. A frequent complaint among expatriate workers is that their career suffers from the lack of networking and face time with people in their organization. It is, I think, not a coincidence that academics are one of the most mobile workforces in the world and also people with famously wide-ranging networks.

 
It's been a few years now since a number of former communist east-European countries joined the EU and the free labour market. And contrary to many people's fears and expectations, we did not get a massive influx of poor Poles, Slovaks or Romanians eager to take advantage of Sweden's labour market and social safety nets. In fact, it didn't amount to more than a trickle, and those that have come have been people we've in short supply of. Unless driven to it by destitution, severe persecution or violence, most people would just rather stay where they are. People willing to relocate to a different country (like me) are outliers, the exception to the rule. People willing to do so not just for a few years but perhaps for good are even rarer.

Second, this acknowledges that skilled people are a valuable resource, not a liability, and it's a resource that's growing scarcer as more societies climb the economic ladder. If you have the skills - academic, administrative or artisanal - to merit the attention of a foreign company despite the extra costs, hassle and uncertainty, then you're the kind of person to be in demand in many places in the world. As Japanese politicians and companies are coming to realize, a lack of skilled workers is deleterious to a society in the long run. Societies are increasingly in competition over such people and the last thing you want to do is discourage them from coming. Most will want to stay in their own home country, not relocate to some distant place with a foreign culture and different language. The problem is not to stem the flow of skilled immigrants as some people seem to believe, but to convince enough of them to come at all, open borders or not.

A welcome secondary effect is that the handling of refugees in Sweden - a clunky, inefficient and unfair system criticised from all political camps - will improve. Today the system is rather perversely set up so that people wait for years to find out if they will be granted refugee status or not, years in which they are not allowed to work. They have literally no choice but to live on public money since they are forbidden by law from supporting themselves - which of course leads to withering criticism from the far right and feeds xenophobic hatred of foreigners living on the public dole. And when a decision can take years, you have refugee families put down roots in Sweden, with new friends and relatives and with children growing up culturally Swedish rather than their ethnic origin. There are occasional cases where children born in Sweden, who speak only Swedish, are being deported with the rest of the family to a country they have never seen. This way, refugees can seek and find employment in Sweden, support themselves and avoid some of the alienation and destructive passivity of enforced non-work. And if they find a permanent job, then the refugee status question becomes moot as they'll get a work permit instead.

A last comment on the political ramifications: The proposition comes from the ruling coalition and from the Green Party together. The current opposition (way ahead in the polls by the way) is the Social Democrats, Sweden's largest party and traditionally the party in power; the Green Party; and the Communists. The last two are small, but there is no realistic way for the Social Democrats to regain a majority without the Green Party - the Communists are too small, and their recent backtracking into dogmatism makes them politically unsavoury to include in a coalition anyway. It means the current proposition has a majority in parliament, and barring a major upheaval the proposition will have a majority for preserving it no matter how the next election turns out. It looks like we're getting an immigration policy in line with reality at last. I wonder when Japan will draw some of the same conclusions.

Learn Japanese, get a Visa

Last week the Japanese foreign ministry tentatively suggested that language proficiency be connected to long-term visas. Now, the first (and natural) reaction would be that "oh, another ploy to keep as many foreigners out of the country as possible", but this really does not seem to be the case. Instead, is seems the purpose is the opposite, making it easier than before to gain a long-term visa as a way to promote language fluency, and to have more long-term immigrants be proficient in the language.

Practice, practice - just not on national cultural treasures, please.

The announcement was very careful about emphasizing that it would not make it more difficult to gain visas for non-speakers than it already is today; instead the purpose is to make it easier for those who do gain Japanese proficiency to stay. The article in Japan Today gives as an example lessening the required work experience for engineers if they have attained a certain level of language fluency. Other sources have implied that the term length of visas to be granted could be affected as well; several kinds of visas (like spouse of a Japanese national) actually come in several terms - like six months, a year and three years - before they need to be renewed, and one suggestion is apparently to give proficient speakers the longer-term visas earlier.

This is actually a very good idea, and one that I suspect they can get very broad support for. It hits all the right buttons for a lot of people: liberals will like the prospect of making it easier for committed people to stay; the right-wing nationalists will love the idea of making the Japanese language a requirement for anything; business interests will like the broadening pool of skilled employees being made available. And for us foreigners - yes, it's a good thing for us too. Remember, the idea is not to make it more difficult than it already is if you don't know Japanese (and to be fair, Japan is really not that difficult, visa-wise, compared to a lot of countries), but you get a real, substantial benefit if you do choose to spend all that time studying.

All statements are very vague, but the general consensus seems to be (and I agree) that this really is a preparative step in accepting more long-term immigration in response to the shrinking workforce. And - coming from a country with a large number of immigrants - since many of the problems associated with immigration stem in part from a lack of language ability, making this a condition is only prudent. It's not like Japan would be particularly exceptional if this was enacted either; Canada, for instance, gives you a bonus both for knowing English and French if you want to move there.

And really - people who are indifferent or negative towards a country do not spend years studying its language. The kind of people that willingly go through with something like that are enthusiastic, even passionate, about it, and should be exactly the kind of people you'd want to encourage to come.

I think this plan may actually be further along than the articles say and than people think. The article in Japan Today above specifically mentions the JLPT as the test to use for measuring proficiency, and there's what seems to be quite solid rumours that the JLPT is being redesigned right now, with a new, intermediate level between level 2 and the top level 1. A long-standing criticism of the test has been that the jump from 2 to 1 is very large, and that level 1 tests a lot of things that aren't very useful in daily life. The redesign is rumoured to add an intermediate level, while possibly push the current level 1 a bit further still. Another rumour - less reliable - hints at the test will be given twice a year rather than just once. The new test is apparently due to be tried out this summer and deployed for real in 2009.

As it happens, an intermediate level above level 2 would be perfect as a "proficient" level for work-related purposes. Level 2 itself is still a little on the low side, while the current level 1 is overkill in several ways. Having a "pre-1" that focuses on proficiency in practical use and making level 1 a real nerdcore test of obscure language points would both make for a better test and fit nicely with these visa plans. And, of course, making the JLPT count for visa determinations means you need to give the test reasonably often so that people don't get left hanging. The rumours of giving it twice a year thus fit in nicely as well.

If the new test is now designed to be rolled out in spring 2009, then that would give textbook authors time to create new study materials and give the test administration a year - a spring session and a winter session - to iron out any problems if the new immigration law is adopted in the spring Diet session a year from now and implemented from April 1st 2010. Time will tell, but I hope it'll happen.