Allegations that GOJ’s Hello Work refuses NJ applicants, as evidenced by “Japanese Only” employer Zeus Enterprise of Tokyo Ginza
Posted by debito on October 26th, 2010
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Hi Blog. Here’s missive from a Mr. Jiasheng Kang Yoshikawa, who claims that government-run unemployment agency Hello Work not only segregates by nationality for job offers, but also promotes companies that refuse otherwise qualified candidates just because their hiring practices are “Japanese Only”. He provides evidence that Zeus Enterprise Inc. of Tokyo Ginza is doing just that. Since the Labor Standards Law forbids employment discrimination by nationality, the fact that a GOJ agency is doing this is shocking indeed. But hardly out of character, alas. Have a read. Blogged with the author’s permission. Arudou Debito
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October 22, 2010
Hello Debito, I’m a Chinese-Canadian living in Japan and I am very supportive of your effort on anti-racism in Japan.
You mentioned in your website that you welcome people to submit “Japanese only” signs if they see one. So I decided to do so although this is from a company website on recruiting, not an actual shop sign.
I’m currently in the middle of looking for a job. I’ve been living in Japan for 10 years and because of my Asian look, Japanese language skill, and my adopted Japanese last name (from my wife), I have been facing less discrimination when applying a job, compared to many other foreigners. However every time when I visit the hellowork’s foreigner section, I can always hear some employers routinely refusing applications from foreign residents, especially those from regions such as Africa, Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The foreign residents section itself is a discriminatory practice too as foreign residents have no other choice but are required to visit a segregated “foreigner section”, even though in my case I do not need any language interpretation or counselling on Japanese life.
When I visited hellowork last week, as usual I have the staff phoning hiring businesses to introduce me as an applicant. Because all the jobs I apply require high level of trilingual (English, Japanese, Chinese) skill, most companies do not mind my background as a foreigner, however Zeus Enterprise, upon hearing that I’m a foreigner from the hellowork staff, rejected me as a valid applicant, saying that this position is for “Japanese only”.
Source: http://www.zeus-enterprise.co.jp/recruit/b_coordinator.html
What I feel frustrated is that as a government agency, and as a “specialist” to assist foreign residents, hellowork’s foreign section never actively counter-argue with employers. In almost all instances they’ll simply say “I understand” and hang up, without stating that it’s a discriminatory practice and is against general human rights.
I also find it appalling that Zeus Enterprise even dare to indicate their “Japanese only” requirement on their website. (Most companies nowadays only reject verbally but do not dare to write so explicitly on job postings).
I’ll follow your suggestion to visit the local Jinken Yogo Bu for a discussion.
It will be great if there are more discussions on job discrimination against foreign and foreign-looking residents with legal employment right in Japan.
All the support from Chiba.
Jiasheng Kang Yoshikawa
Yachiyo, Chiba
ends
October 26th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
If your J language skills are native level,
just apply to them directly and never mention your nationality.
You would be in a unique position to be able to get your foot in the door
and at least ask them in person why it’s “Japanese only” when the issue comes up.
If you have native level Japanese and English, then while they’re kicking you out the door
make sure to tell them how insanely stupid they are to turn away the best applicant
on a technicality.
Noticed that other jobs on the website DON’T have that condition.
Perhaps they are assuming the bilingual coordinator must have perfect Japanese
skills (and not perfect English, etc) to be able to do the job to their satisfaction.
And thus assuming only Japanese nationals have perfect Japanese.
BTW, “Japanese only” is not entirely rare. Saw it a few times in those magazines/websites for haken/temp agencies for day-workers, etc.
Maybe they just don’t want to go through the hassle of spending 30 seconds to check a visa? Or don’t want to have to check all foreigners’ Japanese skills are sufficient and implement some kind of testing program (but isn’t that what the JLPT is for?) Should be illegal.
Some jobs would legitimately be limited to Japanese nationals, such as certain government jobs.
October 26th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
My experiences are a little different.
A few years ago it seemed that my job was about to come to an end. I went to my local (Shibuya) Hello Work. No problems and I reviewed a few options. They also kindly suggested that I try the HW in Roppongi, which apparently specializes in jobs for NJ. Ideally there would not be a separate location for NJ, but as I was still able to use the regular HW, I would not classify this as discrimination. I went to the Roppongi office and looked into several job postings. The people there were nice and kindly called up the companies that interested me to try to arrange interviews. I cannot remember the company names anymore, but several of the companies that I chose refused to even meet me because I was NJ, even after the HW representative tried his best telling them of my various linguistic and technological degrees, certification, experience and long-term residence. Following this, the HW representative seemed sincerely apologetic and embarrassed and told me companies were not allowed to do that and said that he would remove their postings from their database. All in all, I received fair treatment from the staff at HW.
How such jobs get posted in their database is more likely the problem. They seem to be scanned in with likely little or no review. HW could do a better job screening them, but I would not go as far as saying that they are actively trying to discriminate.
October 26th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Hello work is a reality check for anybody who thinks Japan doesnt discriminate. I been down there countless times, and 90% of all calls made resulted in “gaijin wa muri or iranai” I am qualified for the job. There are lots of cleaning jobs and yakiniku shop hell jobs etc but nothing good. I see so many guys down there, just begging for anything, its really sad.
October 26th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Debito,
Not to be disrespectful, but this has been going on for years down at hello work. Perhaps its not as overt in Academia, but I think you should try it out for yourself. I was offered a dream job of delivering furniture, only later to be recanted because they worried about how a gaijin face would affect their clients. Another time I was told that the company had never had the experience of hiring a foriegner, so they could not start with me. Another time they said a Chinese had worked for them, but never an American, so I was off limits. The Filipino guy next to me was catching hell. He finally landed his dream job, something to do with “drum cans” use your imagination. I overheard the counsler talking with the companies, they were very straight “Filipino dame desu!” The south american guy had it no better on my right. I heard lots of dream jobs having to do with “bento” “soji” and “dry kuringu” and some “sara arau” for him. Poor dude looked depressed. If there is a law prohibitting discrimination, it aint enforced.
October 26th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Refusing NJ is just one of the countless list of Labor Law violations Japanese “black companies” listed in HW are performing (such as refusing overtime payment).
This particular case definitely demonstrates discrimination against NJ, but when looking at the bigger picture, the fact is that the whole nation is facing more and more illegal employers.
October 26th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
It baffles me that they would word it that way… all they need to say is “Japanese must be your first language” and it immediately becomes… BAFFLING, since if they want a bilingual person chances are that at least one of the two languages isn’t going to be completely native, but not in my opinion offensive. If the job requires language skills, “native” is one possible required level that doesn’t seem too unreasonable (and isn’t racist, as a zainichi Korean or anyone else who was born and raised here in a Japanese-speaking home would be eligible).
I wonder what the reasoning behind something like that is. If they’re rejecting Asians, it can’t be looks. What are they really afraid of?
October 27th, 2010 at 7:54 am
Level3-san, when Japanese write “Japanese-native level” or “English -native level” they usually mean nationaliy, and this is the way to advertise their conditions without being accused of discrimination. I’ve been over this already, arguing with HR or 就職案内agencies.They always say that we foreigners don’t have the ability to understand all these 巧妙なnuances and phrasing and stuff(that’s exactly what I was told ).
October 27th, 2010 at 9:21 am
Just as Norik says, “J language native level” & “English-native level” does usually mean the nationality of the applicant, in my experience. It’s a waste of time to keep applying if your nationality doesn’t match the “native-level” language skills stated as required; again – speaking from my experience. They don’t really care if your linguistic skills may be impeccable (e.g., you can have a PhD from the UK, written in English, or from Japan, written in Japanese), If you weren’t born in an “Anglophone” country, or in Japan (for J language-native level), you’re usually doomed. To be fair, I have to say that I’ve seen ads that specify that for an applicant to be consider to have language skills near the native speaker level: “at least 12 yrs of education in English (or Japanese)…” and no nationality requirements.
Although, as you can see, I’m not a native speaker of English, I feel comfortable using it and I’ve been twice in the U.S., in a technical school and grad school. However, just last week I was denied twice when applying for jobs, b/c of my nationality. I had applied for work at two different U.S. institutions in Tokyo, and in both cases I was told I wasn’t a valid candidate b/c of my SE European nationality. One place said so explicitly, the other was subtly expressing the same notion. But, one’s institution’s HR staff told me that their reasoning was that, unlike in the case of Japanese, Korean, German, … nationals, I’d have to wait 2 weeks to get a U.S. visa, to go on a business trip. (Japanese, German and some other nationals go under the Visa Waiver Program.) To hire me is just too bothering for the institution, it seemed. Well, of course.
BTW, speaking of language skills requirements, it happens in schools, too!
There’s an international high school for expat kids that teaches in English solely, here in Tokyo. The school’s requirement too is that for a kid to be admitted “at least one of the parents must be a native speaker of English.” Last year we once had thought it’d be nice to have our kid enroll there, but when we noticed the language requirement, we just felt really bad about the school. Besides, my J spouse and European I aren’t _native_speakers of English, so the school has the right to refuse us. Sorry I digress!
There have also been J companies (all this year) that would tell me they needed the native-level English language users and that I didn’t qualify. Again, one needs to be coming from the UK, NZ, Australia, Canada, or the U.S., apparently.
I’m not even sure if this is really discriminatory or just “atarimae” (around the world?), as I’ve noticed similar nationality related restrictions when I was looking even for unpaid internship in the States.
October 27th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Seems a bit strange that a company would cut off their nose to spite their face like thus. I am sure there are some, but doubt there are that many Japanese who speak both Chinese and English to business level.
Conversely, I have met more than a few native Chinese speakers here who speak both Japanese and English well.
Seems that this company is shooting itself in the foot through its own bloody minded stupidity.
October 27th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
I find it curious that nobody here pointed out what actually caught my eye (and would disqualify me and many Japanese):
the age discrimination.
Most Japanese aren’t going to empathize with the Japanese-only clause (regardless of whether this is right or wrong). But I guarantee you that they’ll care about the age discrimination. Especially if they’re 36 and not in a stable full-time job.
October 27th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Eido, to their credit, it does say “23 to about 35″ (35歳位), so I doubt that a 36-year-old would be refused for that reason alone. A brief survey (using the scientific method of asking two linguistics-minded native speakers sitting near me) would indicate that people up to 37 or 38 can still be “about 35″, but after that you round up to 40.
I actually bumped up against that on the opposite end when I first arrived in Japan and was looking to move on from my miserable eikaiwa job. The upper limit is approximate but the lower one is strict, and two different headhunters said that they couldn’t place a 21-year-old in such a position, even with the same 4-year degree as anyone else, because Japanese graduates are all 22 or over. ^_^;
October 27th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Age discrimination isn’t actually legal anymore. But I do see ads “Must be a high school graduate, having graduated from high school no earlier than Heisei 12.” or something… which is basically age discrimination, unless it took someone DECADES to pass a high school entrance exam, they want someone in their 20s, plain enough. They always find away to get around it (and this may just be me being an overly sensitive female, but does it seem like the main requirement for a woman to get a job is to be young and Asian… i.e. a pretty face, regardless of experience or anything else?)
October 27th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Age discrimination is illegal here?
Seriously, I had no idea. It’s so blatant everywhere I assumed it was legal.
Every company is still basically taking the attitude that Japan still has lifelong employment, so they don’t want to hire people who are a “mere” 20 years from retirement. Plus all the other “this is the old system, anyone who differs from the system is absolutely unacceptable.”
I’ll soon graduate from J grad school, I hope to find a job here, but am quite worried that since I worked a few years and went back to grad school, that my age will lead to refusals to even accept an application. If I go home, my work experience will be a boon.
But these days, it’s total bullshit. Nobody (except civil servants) has a guarantee of lifetime employment anymore. Get laid off when you’re 40, and you basically fucked, doubly so if you’re a female. Yet Japan is whining about a “labor shortage”.
Is there ANY anti age discrimination group in Japan?
– What do you care? You’ve already said on the Web elsewhere that something like the Otaru Onsens lawsuit (a group of people who fought racial discrimination, not age, but discrimination nonetheless) was a “tiny” thing. If you did find a group, no doubt you’d find some way to demean or diss them for their efforts as well.
October 27th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Just checked the page. The 「日本人限定」 line has been removed. So, maybe they heard something from someone?
– So it has. Well, good. “Tiny” efforts sometimes do pay off.
October 28th, 2010 at 2:58 am
And we assume that just because they removed the line from the website, they are also changing their policy? I mean, it would be nice to be able to assume that.
In a way, I tend to appreciate racists at least being publicly racist, so we can know who and what they are. Tales from Hello Work seem to indicate that many more employers will not hire gaijin anyway, but don’t advertise that fact. Entrenched stealth racism only becomes apparent when gaijin happen to apply for work.
When they’re dumb enough to admit it openly, going to court becomes easier. If they don’t advertise their racist policy, they can always claim (just as sexists, ageists, classists, etc. always do) that the person isn’t a victim of a universal policy of discrimination, but that the individual just “isn’t qualified” or was “less qualified” than the successful, majority race applicants. The employer just rewrites the evaluation system so that the minority applicant gets fewer points than the majority applicant.
– I see. So more fool us people only trying to help others through our “tiny” efforts, for they wind up driving these discriminators’ practices into the woodwork. Yet open discrimination merely enables what you call “tiny” court cases anyway. Best to let it lie out in the open and do nothing about it? You speak with confused (and forked) tongue.
Have fun looking for a job after you finish your college degree in Japan. And don’t bother asking us for help later. Just appreciate the racists, you gaijin.