Japan Will Allow More Immigration, Official Says

[Aptrgangr]

Japan Will Allow More Immigration, Official Says

By Jason Clenfield

May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Japan will open its borders to more foreign workers to keep the economy growing as its population ages, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Mitoji Yabunaka said.
``We're ready to make Japan as open as possible,'' Yabunaka said in a May 21 interview in Tokyo. ``Clearly there's the need for more immigration. We're faced with all sorts of demographic questions.''
Japan's population began declining in 2005 and the government said earlier this year that it may fall by as much as a quarter by 2050. Japan has never had to rely on mass immigration, unlike countries such as the U.S. and Australia that were founded by migrants.
``Japan has no official immigration policy like those of the U.S. or Australia,'' said Hidenori Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute. ``The policy has been to keep people out if they intend to stay permanently.''
Foreigners accounted for 1.6 percent of Japan's 128 million population last year. Almost half of the 2 million people that the government classifies as foreigners are people of Chinese, Korean and Brazilian descent who were born in Japan, said Sakanaka, who is a former head of the Tokyo immigration bureau.
The Foreign Ministry's Yabunaka said the government's decision last September to allow 1,000 Filipino nurses to work in Japan is an example of a more open immigration policy.
``It's a small beginning, but it is a beginning,'' he said.

Japanese Test
The proposed partnership, still subject to approval by the Philippines congress, requires workers to take six months of lessons in Japanese and nursing, followed by a supervised internship culminating in an examination in Japanese that critics say is so onerous as to make the program impossible.
``This won't address the nursing shortage,'' said Sakanaka. ``Nobody will be able to pass the tests and they'll all be sent home.''
Japan had six nurses for every 1,000 people in 2004, the most recent year for which government data are available, compared with 8.3 in the U.S. About a fifth of Japan's population is over 65 years old and the percentage is climbing, increasing the demand for health-care services.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's key economic panel last week proposed that the number of foreign students in the country be more than doubled as a way to bring in skilled labor from abroad.
``I don't know if it's what you'd call cultural resistance, but since this is new, there are lots of things that have to be pondered and discussed,'' Yabunaka said, when asked why Japan has been so slow to open its borders. ``Naturally people are concerned about safety.''

Bloomberg.com: Japan

[Cirrus]

Even them !...

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

They still "lag behind" about 50 years...

[Ioannis]

Found a some what funny and sad comment on Japan's immigration issues.

The Japanese realize there is no panic, this will be a gradual population decline over 50 years. They have time. Believe me they are watching Western Europe and America and they don’t want to repeat those mistakes. Japan is one of the most homogenous countries in teh world and due to Confucianious culture adopted from China, they would rather have a slight economic decline then have the negative externalities of uncontrolled immigration from very divergent culture. Societal harmony is very important, so they are looking at how to do this and maintain their societal integrety.

Right now Japan is fine

Also the income inequality in Japan is the lowest in the developed world according to the UN’s calculation of the gini coefficient:

List of countries by income equality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The crime rate is nearly the lowest in every measure of violent crime:

Comparative Criminology | Asia - Japan

Despite what the author called a “malaise” it is still the second wealthiest nation in the world after the US and ahead of Germany.

According to the CIA factbook

https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...s/ja.html#Econ

Japan has a 4% unemployment rate far lower than the Western EU average (8%), lower than America, lower than Canada.

No significant population living in poverty (hence the relatively small income inequality)..believe it or not there are no ghettos in Tokyo.

GDP growth was 2.2% (EU was 3% wow so large) last year.

In the end most of the immigrants will come from India, China, and SE Asia.

I’m pretty sure they will be educated, and as the article states, they will have to have some proficiency in Japanese.

I do know of communities of CHinese and Brazlians that have settled in Japan that have Japanese ancestry. There are some problems, although they are ethnically Japanese they don’t act like it.

So far most migrants are from S.Korea, China, Brazil, and a handful of Iranians.

The crime rate has already went up, mostly due to Koreans and especially the mainland Chinese:

Japan Reference - Society - Crime in Japan : analysis per nationality

Oh on top of other things like talking extremely loud in public, spitting and throwing trash everywhere (similar behavior that you can see in Hong Kong or Shanghai, but never in Tokyo before Chinese came). The Chinese also have their own superiority issues, where they will tell everyone, there culture is 5,000 years old and Japanese came from China (therefore Chinese are superior, something that is not really true anyway).

Japan has a 4% unemployment rate far lower than the Western EU average (8%), lower than America, lower than Canada.

No significant population living in poverty (hence the relatively small income inequality)..believe it or not there are no ghettos in Tokyo.

GDP growth was 2.2% (EU was 3% wow so large) last year.

I know…maybe Japanese should change. They should open up immigration to various radicalized poor Muslim countries and accept multi-culti ideas debasing their native culture and holding all other cultures in the world as equally valid. Then they can have Muslims protesting in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo burning Japanese flags telling them to convert to Islam or die and threatening terrorist attacks.

Sure the crime rate will increase and maybe they should restructure their economy so they have a high unemployment rate and a big social welfare system they can’t pay for. Maybe they would better better off if all women worked and didn’t stay home with the kids and had all these latchkey kids who have high STD rates and out of wedlock birth like the good old U.S.

I think not…they are doing fine. They don’t want to be like America. They just want to buy some of our crap they don’t want our culture, and I have to say after living there…if I was them, I wouldn’t either.

[Franze]

Sad, very sad!! The apocalypse is near!