NJ company “J Hewitt” advertises “Japanese Only” jobs in the Japan Times!
Posted by debito on March 10th, 2009
Hi Blog. In what came as a shock to me, alert reader Rob sent me scans of yesterday’s (March 9, 2009) Japan Times Classified Ads, with three sections advertising for “Japanese Only” applicants! See scans:
Sounds a bit like a forklift operator. But Japanese Only?
“Must be bilingual”. So then why Japanese Only?
Selling soap and ear piercing products. Okay, again, why Japanese Only?
Nice company, this J. Hewitt KK (http://www.jhewitt.co.jp/). Seems to be run by a NJ named Jon Knight. Feel free to drop the company a line to say how you feel at info@jhewitt.co.jp
Rob also sent a message of complaint to the Japan Times. (You can too. Classified Ads Dept at jtad@japantimes.co.jp, and all other departments at https://form.japantimes.co.jp/info/contact_us.html).
For by their own guidelines:
Advertising jobs that discriminate by nationality may not be “offensive” to some, but they certainly may easily be construed to be illegal. They violate Japan’s Labor Standards Law Article 3: ”An employer shall not engage in discriminatory treatment with respect to wages, working hours or other working conditions by reason of the nationality, creed or social status of any worker.” That’s before we even get to the Japanese Constitution Article 14…
I shouldn’t have to be barking about this. I expected more from the Japan Times when it comes to promoting equality in the workplace. Shame on them, and especially on their client.
JT, screen your advertisements and stop abetting discrimination.
Arudou Debito in Sapporo
March 10th, 2009 at 10:03 am
What’s ironic is that one of the things they sell, body piercings, will cause Japanese to discriminate against you (whether you’re NJ or Japanese).
Many spas/gyms these days ban “body art & piercings” in addition to tattoos.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:11 am
How well is Article 3 (equal treatment) of the Japan Labor Standards Act even enforced?
I remember reading somewhere in print that, involving foreigners or “NJ”, there were only two high court cases about it in Japan. In both cases the NJ cost.
Maybe the Labor Standards Investigation office is a lot more thorough, and so there are few instances that make it to a court. But something tells me that the hurdle on proof of discrimination is so high in Japan that Article 3 is just pretty words.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:34 am
And the ad is in English. Oh the irony.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Almost the same as the ad on “Gaijin Pot” by7ACT “Native English speakers ONLY”, while two lines above they say “Native-level English ” which is not the same.
http://www.gaijinpot.com/job_view.php?jid=9289&rid=16&tr=39&cat=&full_part=&position_type=&keyword=&location=210&selang=all&offset=0
From what I checked, 7ACT is run by Australians.
I sent them a letter(mail, in fact) of complaint, stating that their ad is illegal, since it discriminates against people from countries others than US,UK,Canada, Asutralia, NZ and SAR.No answer at all.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:48 am
also, why are they looking for only Japanese in an english paper…? or do they mean `nikkei` only because they can fit in once they speak perfect japanese…
March 10th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
That someone is looking for a Japanese shipping clerk or office and accounting manager through Japan Times might have a reason.
Kantou region has dozens upon dozens of licensed headhunters who do this as side business. Some place ads they have no hope of filling so that they get the hundreds of resumes. Others place a lot of ads to give the impression that they are actually successful headhunters with a lot of leads.
I am currently peeling off the layers of an onion who presented himself to me as an “executive recruiter” with a deep bench of clients. In fact, his snazzy sounding office building is, per Google search, something that looks more akin to a building looking for tenants. The fact that a microbrewer also occupies the same floor does not help matters. (Again, via internet search.)
And the international network on the website is simply other distantly associated people operating out of side offices, their homes, or shared space. I was in fact the one that pointed some of the affiliates out to the “international” recruiter.
So first, I would suggest stepping back and asking if these are even real jobs or if the “recruiter” isn’t really just looking for resumes from Japanese people who speak English and read the JT.
But total agreement on bringing folks to task about the “Japanese Only” part.
March 10th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
The Labor Standards Law only applies once the person becomes an employee. It governs the relationship between employee and employer, and does not apply to people who are not yet employees. So the company can be as discriminatory as they want in their hiring practices. And we all know that the “people” in Art. 14 of the Constitution is translated as “kokumin”, meaning NJ are excluded…. that’s how they got back at the Americans for giving them the constitution I guess.
– We’ve talked this over again and again on Debito.org, and bringing up this red herring about “kokumin” vs. “people” in the Constitution is getting annoying. Legal precedent and established practice in Japan has established that NJ are also protected under the Constitution. Everyone in Japan is. Talk to any constitutional law lawyer or your local MOJ Jinken Yougobu and they’ll tell you the same. So leave it out.
As for the LSL, I was wondering about this very issue of protections BEFORE employment, and conferred with some people schooled in labor law last night while blogging. The verdict was that we’re just not 100% sure, I’ll admit. But I strongly doubt the law was framed in the spirit of “you can discriminate as much as you like against people before you hire them”; that’s just counterintuitive. The issue then becomes one of enforcement. Obviously I’m not going to interpret in favor of discrimination, and I’m certainly going to advocate an enforcement against discrimination.
So I ask anyone who says that people aren’t protected BEFORE employment to find some legal justification for it. A similar law, the Equal Opportunities in Employment Law (danjo koyou kikai kintouhou), protects against discrimination by gender BEFORE employment, obviously (otherwise, if you think about it, it would be absolutely meaningless as well as weak). However weak the law is in enforcement you can still sue under it and win (viz 2002 Nomura Case. here and here). So I’ll assume the same thing about the Labor Standards Law, and put the burden of proof on the people who would support an interpretation favoring discrimination. Thanks.
March 10th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
@Norik
Maybe they’re looking for a way to keep the door closed for Japanese people but allow people who aren’t exactly native speakers but are still foreign. I would have sent an email and a letter though, not only to 7ACT but to Gaijinpot as well.
March 10th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Looks like a direct hire situation by a distributor, not branching out into the search business.
Another possibility is that the business is not aware that the ad will ONLY run in English?
March 10th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Norik,
A native English speaker can be any race.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Just a thought on what might be behind this ad. Debito can probably confirm this for me, but isn’t there some provision when setting up a company in Japan that staff (N/NJ) have to be equal, ie. one Japanese hire for each NJ (or was that just in a dream I had)? If this is the case, perhaps the company needs a “Japanese” (citizen) in order to make their quota?
Other than that, I can’t see any logical defence to this type of advertisement.
– One of my friends who tried to set up his own company in Sapporo (The Finland Design Center) was told by the GOJ in the 1990’s that he had to hire two full-time Japanese, since his was a a foreign company with no Japanese torishimari yaku, and there were local-hire issues. This bankrupted him in just a year or two.
I have another NJ friend down in Tokyo who set up his translation company with no local hires. He’s still chugging along strong, couldn’t understand why Sapporo lowered the boom on him.
So again, it might just be a matter of enforcement in these cases. Dunno for sure.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Dear Debito,
I can offer you one clue with respect to your comments in 11. The “Business Manager Visa category” for foreigners is interpreted by Japanese MoJ/Immigration People and other authorities, in such a way that, “An NJ investor who sets up a business in Japan and is need of this Visa category (Business manager / investor) then that NJ MUST employ minimum two Native Japanese people”. And if you dont show proofs of that employment, they reject your Visa application or simply tell you to apply for Engineer or other category visas. I have had this experience in past with me and a few of my friends while I was trying to set up a Japan office for one of my employers in India.
As regards the Hiring practices, (sometime back in that Takadanobaba Ad matter) many on this blog had said that its an Open Secret in this market space to dodge NJ out of such requirements.
If anyone NJ applies to any Japanese Job Portals and tries it oneself, he or she can even give you proofs on this discrimination. Even when they dont say we will not take NJ or say we will take only J, once you apply / send email, they will respond with a sorry letter. Well not always the reason will be Kokuseki, as most people have started taking care of this issue. But if someone who has had this experience, s/he may be able to give us all a proof. I had one such email proof long time ago, but I dont have it in hand now (I lost it somewhere). Request other friends on this blog to share if they have such proofs, by sending it to Debito.
Another careful reading into the “Perfectly Legal-Looking Ads” will tell you the rotten smell. Its when these headhunters post the jobs in their web site they ask tacitly in ‘desired skills’ that the candidate should have a Native level command on Japanese language, meaning, even if an NJ applies in English (as the so called ads are in English) s/he can immediately be turned down on either language capability or origin whichever is most convenient to the head-hunter or his principles paying him for this work.
Another trade secret is given by someone earlier. Its also an open secret to collect resumes and show that your Db is strong enough to prospective clients. These days, however, no one from prospective employers’ side is impressed with any number of NJ’s resumes as there is a generic NJ non-acceptance wave, which has started from likes of Toyota, and it has reached virtually all industries and everyone in the Japanese HR teams know that their own government wont do anything or wont even bother if they collectively discriminate against the NJ people, at this time of crisis.
What is shameful and what surprises me, is the fact, that an NJ company is actively doing this kind of advertisement and a newspaper like JT has allowed this to be published.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Two points:
JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) mentioned somewhere on its site that a KK in Japan must have a Representative Director who is a resident of Japan. There doesn’t seem to be any rule if the person must be Japanese, only that they live here.
It may have been different in the early 1990’s. Maybe then there was a citizenship test, and a requirement for the size of the board.
The residency requirement, obviously, is there to prevent corporations being set up and run by ghost management that is actually located in another country. That goes on a lot with smaller outfits, and it’s not clear whether the Japanese authorities always look the other way.
Representative Director, by the way, is the translation of Dai Hyou Torishimari Yaku. It often appears as “president” or “board chairman”, but it is actually something more significant. The officer has final say and some personal responsibility. This is probably why the term Representative Director is out there.
Second, the U.S. and Japan have a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation (FCN Treaty). I might have mentioned this before here. The treaty allows Japanese companies to discriminate in favor of Japanese executive management in America, and also allows American companies operating in Japan to favor Americans for top positions.
I’m not sure that fork lift operator is anticipated, even though it is a critical job if you are an executive who does not want to be lifting heavy boxes yourself. But I bet that Representative Director doesn’t have to worry about a Japanese taking his job.
March 11th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Debito,
One more for you:
http://www.dirittodellavoro.it/public/current/miscellanea/atti/israele/0049-j~1.pdf
the author at this link suggests that LSL Article 3 would not include the hiring decision. (That is around the top of page 6 of the PDF.)
The theory is that decision to hire is under the freedom to contract. The government should not “force” anyone to contract with others that they don’t want to. I think the same argument was being made by the Southerners against the U.S. civil rights act of the 1960’s, but that is an aside.
How convenient if you can discriminate in the hiring decision, then you don’t have to worry too much about actually following the equal treatment provisions of Article 3 later on. And no one loses face.
– Quite. If you signed a contract accepting the unequal conditions, you’ve effectively signed away your labor rights, because if you sue in a court of law later on, they’ll say you agreed to it so you haven’t a case. But if you don’t sign an unequal contract, you won’t have a job anyway if offering the unequal conditions is legal. So I guess the LSL really is useless in stopping discrimination beforehand. Rats.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Debito,
This is a bit of topic drift, but in response to your post and examples, there is the new Labor Contract Law (effective March 1 last year).
While the English commentary is usually sort of light on these developments, I have found two interesting posts. One is from the government via Fukuoka Prefecture
http://www.fukuoka-plb.go.jp/36foreigner/Points_of_Labor_Contract_Law.pdf
The other is commentary by DLA Piper
http://www.dlapiper.com/files/Publication/802dddb9-07d9-42a8-a423-2e49c19bb6b0/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/0d8507d2-bfb1-457d-af93-3116e6be5038/New_Japanese_Labor_Law.pdf
It looks like the law added just a few new things and clarified some old ones.
Hopefully more discussion will be up about the Catch 22 foreigners are so often presented here about asking to sign something once they DO in fact overcome the gaikokujin hurdle. It puts them under the linked law above, rather than the one all the Japanese get to use. Again, it’s discriminator’s mission accomplished. And no one loses face. (See? You signed!)