Opening of labor market delayed

労働市場自由化の遅れ

A comment by a senior central government bureaucrat helps explain that reluctance: If we take in many talented people from abroad, there will be fewer jobs available to Japanese people. As a result, young people from developing countries could end up doing "3-K" jobs they dislike — jobs that are kitsui (hard), kitanai (dirty) and kiken (dangerous).

The comment came in reaction to the following remarks by the head of an IT venture firm: "We have excellent Chinese and Indian engineers working with us, and they are making great contributions to the company. But many Japanese firms hold them in low esteem because they are from developing countries. Japan is a backward country when it comes to hiring foreign IT engineers."

In fact, Japan is far behind other advanced industrial countries in the employment of foreign engineers. For example, this nation receives more than 1,000 IT engineers each year from India, with which it has a technical-exchange program. But the number does not begin to compare with those in the United States, particularly in California's Silicon Valley where more than a third of the engineers are Chinese and Indians.

It is not that Japan has a small need for foreign engineers. In fact, much of the latent demand for their services remains untapped because of systemic barriers, not just psychological inhibitions. One obstacle is the limited period of time in which foreign workers are allowed to stay here. The immigration system sets the period for engineers at three years, compared with more than six years in the United States. However, researchers involved with deregulated "structural reform" zones are permitted to stay for an extended period of five years.

Basically, the need to hire more foreign engineers seems to reflect a chronic lack of vitality in Japan's economy. The latest annual government report on international trade, released recently by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, rightly says that a larger presence of non-Japanese professionals, along with an expansion of foreign direct investment, is essential to re-energize the economy.

Japan owed a great deal to foreign specialists for its modernization, especially in the Meiji Era when Americans and Europeans played indispensable roles as instructors and advisers. After World War II, however, the Japanese achieved a miraculous recovery largely on their own. As a result, they became overconfident about their ability to do things without outside help and underestimated the importance of using foreign talent and capital as a tonic for domestic growth.

Now, with industrial technology becoming diversified and advanced as never before, it is becoming increasingly difficult to rely solely on Japanese knowledge and experience. To move ahead in the global technology race, the nation requires, as it did in the Meiji Era, a larger injection of foreign expertise not only in IT-related sectors but in other high-tech industries.

The globalization of national economies, meanwhile, is internationalizing employment in service sectors as well. This is a common trend seen in developed countries around the world — a trend that reflects labor shortages in particular sectors, such as health care and nursing. The United States and European states, for example, are active in hiring nurses from developing countries.

In the case of jobs that require highly professional judgment, however, the primary objective of hiring foreigners is not to meet labor shortages but to seek advice from them. This aim seems especially important in Japan. The dramatic recovery of Nissan Motor Co. under President Carlos Ghosn should not be considered an isolated case because it has a common message for Japan: The world's second-largest economy has a lot to learn from foreign managers. The message should apply to the troubled banking industry as well.

Japan's labor market as a whole is virtually closed to foreigners. Non-Japanese workers represent less than 1 percent of the total workforce, compared with 5 percent to 10 percent in the United States and Europe. There is much the government can and should do to increase legitimate employment of foreigners, including unskilled workers. It should, for example, expand student-exchange programs, provide employment support and ease the restrictions on residence. Labor-market liberalization, if implemented carefully and in stages, will bring substantial benefits to the Japanese economy.

The Japan Times Weekly
July 26, 2003
(C) All rights reserved

      政府高官によれば、「多数の外国人技術者を受け入れれば、日本人の就職機会が阻害され、その結果、途上国出身の若い労働者が3K（きつい、汚い、危険）職場に追いやられる」という。

      日本は毎年1000人以上のインド人技術者を受け入れているが、米国とは比較にならない。シリコン・バレーでは技術者の3分の1以上がインド人、中国人といわれる。

      日本が外国人技術者を活用していない理由には制度的問題もある。入管法によれば「構造改革特区」を除いて外国人技術者の滞在期間は最長3年とされている。

      最近発表された通商白書は、外国人技術者の導入は、外国からの直接投資とともに日本経済の活性化に必要としている。

      日本は明治時代に欧米人専門家の助言で近代化を果たしたが、第二次世界大戦後の復興は主に独力で成し遂げた。その結果、日本人は自信過剰になっている。国際的技術競争に生き残るために明治時代と同様、外国人人材を登用する必要がある。

      専門的判断を求めるために外国人人材を登用することも重要である。ゴーン社長の下での日産自動車の劇的業績回復が良い例だ。問題を抱える銀行業界にも貴重な教訓になる。

      日本の労働市場で、外国人労働者の比率は1%以下である。未熟練労働者も含め、外国人労働者のさらなる導入を進めるため、政府は学生交換計画を拡大し、雇用支援をすべきである。労働市場の自由化は、慎重に段階的に実施すれば、日本経済に大きな利益をもたらすだろう。