As companies hurry to prepare for the acceptance of foreign workers that they hope will solve their labour shortages, other businesses are offering services to help foreigners obtain visas under the new system and help them in their daily lives.

Matsuya Foods Co, which runs a major chain of beef-bowl restaurants, has about 4,000 foreign workers that make up 20 per cent of its workforce.

Twenty-four of them, mainly from Vietnam, took the restaurant worker skills test for the new Type-1 residence status for specific skills introduced in April. When the results were released on Tuesday, many received good news.

All of them had been part-time workers on student visas. Now, they will be among the first to transition to the Type-1 residence status.

“If they want, we’re willing to hire them as regular employees and train them to manage their own stores,” said the Matsuya employee in charge of the matter.

Companies and organisations can directly hire foreigners who pass the skills tests. There are many companies that aim to solve their serious labour shortages by accepting foreign workers. Some companies are directly helping foreigners obtain their qualifications.

Around March, major hotel chain Toyoko Inn Co began Japanese-language training for about 20 of its employees on Cebu Island in the Philippines. The plan is to have these workers take special skills tests, then transfer them to Japan after they receive their visas.

Support organisations

One of the biggest challenges for businesses employing foreign workers is figuring out how to help them settle into their jobs.

As part of the new residence status system, a framework was created for registration-support organisations that specialise in assisting foreigners in their daily lives. These organisations need to be accredited by the Immigration Services Agency.

Under the conventional technical intern training programme, the supervisory organisations that were supposed to intermediate between foreign interns and their employers and provide guidance were found to have employed slipshod labour management practices, which led to about 9,000 workers disappearing from their workplaces. The new framework is intended to prevent these problems in the new system.

Many companies, particularly small and midsize firms, have little experience employing foreigners. For registration-support organisations, helping foreigners obtain visas and settle into their jobs presents a major business opportunity.

In April, major staffing company Pasona Inc launched a service aimed at companies and organisations to help foreign workers settle into their jobs. The company said it has received inquiries from about 100 companies and organisations, and aims to sign contracts with 500 firms in the next three years.

Tokyo-based Global Trust Networks (GTN) Co has hired about 30 foreign workers to mediate for foreigner-only rental housing units and handle inquiries from both tenants and management companies. Services are available in 16 languages, including Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese.

About 1,400 companies and organisations are seeking to become registration-support organisations, with 35 already having obtained accreditation. Pasona and GTN have both submitted applications and hope to complete their registrations quickly.

Farm-bound

There is a growing need for businesses that can introduce or dispatch foreign workers to employers. As foreigners tend to congregate in big cities, these services could help solve the lack of manpower in local areas.

A staffing company in Hokkaido is currently introducing part-time foreign workers to restaurants and other companies for a fee of 50,000 to 60,000 yen ($453 to $544) per worker.

Up to 53,000 foreign workers could receive visas to work in the restaurant industry under the new system over the next five years. “We’ve already received a lot of inquiries,” a company representative said with expectation.

Dispatch employment is allowed under the new system only for agriculture and fishing jobs.

Abridge Inc, a Tokyo-based information technology venture capital firm, plans to launch a business to recruit about 100 people from Cambodia and Vietnam this year, help them obtain special skills visas, then dispatch them to work at farms in places like Hokkaido and Okinawa prefectures. The company wants to quickly expand the programme to the 1,000-person range.

“Nationwide, more and more farmers are unable to deal with the harvest using only Japanese staff. There is a big demand,” said the person in charge of the programme at the company. THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN (JAPAN)/ASIA NEWS NETWORK