Japan Press Weekly

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2018 November 14 - 20 [LABOR]

Business community leader expresses concern over PM Abe’s eagerness to increase acceptance of foreign workers

The Chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (ACE or Keizai Doyukai), Kobayashi Yoshimitsu, on November 19 expressed his concern over the fact that the Abe administration is in a hurry to expand the use of foreign workers without careful consideration.

The Abe government intends to bulldoze through the current Diet session a bill to revise the immigration control act for the purpose of increasing the use of foreign workers. If the bill is enacted, it will be implemented in April next year. The government estimates that up to 340,000 foreign workers will be accepted under the revised law over the next five years. It also states that more than half of the 340,000 workers will be foreign trainees.

On this day, Doyukai held talks with representatives of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) in Tokyo. After the talks, the head of Japan’s major business lobby said to the press that he is concerned about the Abe government rushing to increase the acceptance of foreign workers. He also offered his view that accurate data regarding runaway foreign trainees is necessary for Diet discussions on the bill.

Kobayashi in the talks with Rengo proposed a two-step approach for the expansion of the use of foreign workers. According to the proposal, as the first step, a certain industry will accept more foreign workers in order to set an example to other industries and in the next step, a system needed for the expansion of the use of foreign workers will be established in a practical manner within three years.

Past related articles:
> Foreign trainees testify about harsh working conditions to opposition party Dietmembers [November 9, 2018]
> Thousands of foreign trainees run away from exploitative working conditions [November 8, 2018]