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dudeinjapanHNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

One data point: a few months back we had one of our employees denied a Permanent Resident Visa due …

… One data point: a few months back we had one of our employees denied a Permanent Resident Visa due to a clerical error where our company forgot to notify the immigration bureau of an address change--we literally moved our office across the street, same city block. Our lawyer said such a case was unheard of a few years ago; these were always handled as simple corrections, instead the poor chap had to go to the back of the 9+ month waiting queue. Our lawyer says the news is too new to know what concrete ramifications it will actually have on us, a tech company which uses English as the main language for engineering roles.

Original discussionJapan implements language proficiency requirements for certain visa applicants137 source comments · at import
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LA
lamaseryHN

Key detail: > Immigration authorities say the move is aimed at preventing cases in which foreign workers obtain visas under one category, but then engage in unrelated or lower-skilled work. The claim appears to be that people were using up visa slots for things like interpreters or other jobs where clearly you'd need good language skills to actually do the job, including in Japanese, with the intent all along of doing some other job instead. An up-front test should let through almost all of the legitimate claimants of these visas, and stop almost all the fraudsters. Probably a lot cheaper than a similarly-effective level of after-the-fact auditing, or more-extensive checks into applicants' work situation. [EDIT] I mean, in the framing provided by the government, the above appears to be what's going on. Governments may lie, of course.

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LA
lauriegHN

Relatively small clerical errors causing people to get permanent residency applications denied is becoming a trope. The ones I have heard: - Client company address changed 4 years ago and the paperwork wasn't filed within 2 weeks. - A late pension payment 2 years ago. - Pension and health insurance were paid on time, but the date stamp on the physical payment slips was smudged and so "did not prove" that it was paid on time. - City hall workers didn't send out health insurance slips in time, applicant (through no fault of their own) couldn't pay by the deadline. This level of strictness is affecting people's lives, ability to make plans, get mortgages etc. To add to this, permanent residency application times are now very long. After you complete your application some people are waiting nearly 2 years to get a response. There is a lot of vagueness about what happens if the rules change d…

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MC
mc3301HN

I hate to say this is a strange "win-win" in the end (politically speaking). It'll be a little harder for Japanese companies to take advantage of foreigners, often trafficking them to quite shady working and living conditions with very little pay. This has potential to protect some foreigners from that situation here. Additionally, this looks like a "win" for the anti-foreigner crowd, because "now it's tougher to get a visa here, haha!" So it's good for foreigners, while also placating the anti-foreigner group. I know many foreigners here that work in absolutely atrocious working conditions, getting kicked by bosses, seeing crushing death of their coworkers in the factory (and still expected to return to the same unsafe work the next day), tiny wages while living half-dozen people in tiny apartments. It really is sad, and the problem is the companies... not the foreigners.

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KA
kalium-xyzHN

Seems like the guys covering his ass. Ive had visas denied in japan over small errors. I dont use visa lawyers anymore and no longer have this issue. Might ofc also be that the immigration officers got tired of working till 10pm every day

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