Japan to require language proficiency proof for engineer, specialist visa

26 comments

1. What defines if a job “requires Japanese”?

2. We’ll have to wait for further details on this. But I wonder, apart from the English teaching role, how will the immigration authorities know which jobs require Japanese language proficiency and which don’t? What will happen with IT roles for example?

3. fk economy. let’s just learn japanese

4. Do the same here. I work for a Japanese company full of engineers that couldn’t get through a fast food drive thru with their English

5. LOL, so you want talented engineers, but the pay is shit, you get paid in shitty yen AND now you will require them to know Japanese. What do you offer in return Japan? Safety and cheap ramen? Who comes up with these regarded ideas?

6. lol. I left Japan 4 years ago and still get blown up on LinkedIn because they can’t find senior engineers and all their legacy experts are aging out/retiring.

   Now they’re doing THIS? Man, all the people who voted for this hack, have fun with 和トランプ

7. Seems like pointless bureaucracy. If the job description requires Japanese proficiency the company hiring you will ensure that before sponsoring your visa anyway

8. So, all those English-teaching positions where they ban you from speaking Japanese during your working hours… now you need to have N2 to get the visa for these??

   You couldn’t make this shit up.

9. Is this a retroactive thing because this says mid april

10. N2 for enginer visa and specialist? iT people are sweating with this news

11. If someone who has already applied for COE, will this change in rule affect those also?

12. You can hear The Hub filing for bankruptcy.

13. This is genuinely comical how much Japan loves to shoot itself in the foot. There is already a severe shortage of skilled tech workers in Japan, the vast majority of talent aren’t going to grind years of n2 for an otherwise useless language that’s only spoken on a single tiny island with a declining economy. They should be begging skilled overseas techs to come over and offer years long japanese language training. 

14. The article says it’ll apply to new applicants who “intend to work in jobs requiring Japanese” so I assume it’ll be on a case-by-case basis. If not and its a blanket approach, that would be… fascinating, to put it one way. Top tech companies here rely on hiring English-speaking foreigners from abroad because there are nowhere near enough native Japanese with a modern software engineering skillset and the ability to pass big tech-style interviews. They’d be shooting their own tech industry in the foot.

15. This one seems dumb. A company is sponsoring your visa and if they are willing to deal with your communication issues or ensure you get up to par, why should the government care?

16. A great example of how nationalism ruins countries.

17. Having N2 doesn’t mean people can speak anyway. It means they picked the right bubble on the test, maybe can listen, read, and know some prep book vocab.

18. Is this a catch-22 as the JLPT can’t be taken by visitors any more?

19. In medical field i needed the n1, then pass an examination with the ministry before to be allowed to pass the national examination.

20. All this for a measly salary?

21. Goodbye to Japanese tech market

22. So first they went after PR, then doubled the requirements for naturalization, and now they are going after the work visa categories too huh. And all this after raising visa fees by 3000%. But oh no there is no “dark side to Japan” and all these efforts are for “orderly co-existence with foreigners”, whatever that means.

23. If a dodgy company wanted to sponsor an Engineer/Humanities/International Services visa, couldn’t they just write a job description stating Japanese is not required?

    I don’t get the point.

24. So you get paid LESS (low J company salaries + weakening yen) to have MORE skills (technical skills + Japanese)?

    Someone please, make it make sense…

    これって本当に認めないよ

    Companies need to pay more for bilingual staff.
    That rewards everyone (Japanese or Foreign) who invest the time and energy to learn the other language.

25. This 100% would have blocked me oh lordy

26. While I enjoy making life as hard as possible for new immigrants (fuck you I got mine already 😜), is this necessary? A company that hires you and will sponsor your visa has, by that point in the process, already determined your language ability.

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