Yet another Hacker News

Japan moves to tighten rules for foreigners, throwing futures into doubt

28 points mikhael 1 hour ago 35 comments

happytoexplain 26 minutes ago | parent

I acknowledge and sympathize with the pain this will cause, but in regards to Japan itself: Good for them. Not because it is a rightward shift, but because it is a shift toward pragmatism in the face of the inherent tension between respect for all people and respect for one's own people and culture.

In my humble opinion, an ideal world is a liberal one with cherry-picked, tightly controlled, practical conservative elements that boldly take on the intimidating job of maintaining the balance between love and reason.

greggoB 17 minutes ago | parent

I mean, sure, so long as they're willing to deal with the consequences of an aging population and a shrinking workforce.

jfewhfuehg 7 minutes ago | parent

They can just outsource if they really need tech employees.

llm_nerd 42 seconds ago | parent

> I mean, sure, so long as they're willing to deal with the consequences of an aging population and a shrinking workforce.

They're pretty clearly aware of the dire fear-mongering, and chose their path accordingly. They decided to sidestep the pyramid scheme of perpetual growth.

Here in Canada we've been pitched this same scary argument for decades, leading to outrageous levels of immigration, coupled with a growing entitlement among the class (which leads to a complete refusal to integrate in any meaningful way, often while incanting the laughable pablum about mosaic versus melting pot while dragging regressive, destructive habits and cultural norms to Canada, tragedy of the commons behaviour, etc).

Somehow this mass immigration has made us older, and less competitive, moving in exactly the opposite direction of the magical solution it promised while giving away the country. It has led to massive lines for every job, downward pressure on wages, and oversubscribed services at every level.

---

Every now and then there is a discussion about the difference between an "expat" and an "immigrant", but it really is important that people are honest about the difference, because it is very real.

An expat is usually some Westerner that moved to some random country for adventure, a change, whatever. Occasionally they send a postcard home and share videos from the beach. Whatever.

An immigrant, on the other hand, is someone that moves to a country as a beachhead to drag their entire extended family there, often then expanding out from there. Which is precisely what many Western countries have seen where they bring in the "skilled worker", and then the skilled worker drags over their elderly parents, and also their "auntie" as a purported childcare giver, and then registers a business and sponsors their village, and then... This has destroyed the acceptance of immigration and completely obliterated the "oh you're getting older, something something labour shortage" nonsense.

We need to move on from the mass immigration is the solution horseshit, because all it has done is led every developed country to lurch perilously to the right, giving an easy open for charlatans to take advantage of a real problem to push a lot of ancillary things as well.

cafebabbe 10 minutes ago | parent

This is going to cause more pain to the Japanese people.

tremon 9 minutes ago | parent

There is nothing pragmatic about kicking out the workforce you imported because of a shortage of native labour. The pragmatist stance would be to accept those differences, and focus on addressing/alleviating them. Cutting your nose to spite your face is more idealism than pragmatism.

wk_end 5 minutes ago | parent

This is a shift away from pragmatism; pragmatism would be acknowledging the Japan's economic need for immigration.

Whether Europe or North America have a problem with too much immigration and not enough integration is debatable, maybe - and I suspect that's where your perspective comes from - but Japan decidedly does not (maybe too much tourism, and I feel at least some of the antagonism towards foreigners comes from that, but no matter). Immigrants still make up a very small percentage of the population, mostly in Tokyo; given the existing challenges with immigration, they tend to be extremely diligent, respectful, appreciative of Japanese culture, and hard-working.

This is just a populist conservative government pandering to the some of the worst aspects in society to distract from their failures.

hankbond 20 minutes ago | parent

> applicants for permanent residency will need to show that their annual household income exceeds the Japanese average

Can someone explain why they think this is a detrimental practice for native Japanese?

happytoexplain 18 minutes ago | parent

> Can someone explain why they think this is a detrimental practice for native Japanese?

You're quoting a practice applied to foreigners, but you say "for native Japanese". Maybe there was a typo, or I could be misreading?

lazyasciiart 13 minutes ago | parent

Presumably they’re asking why this is being done, since it’s obviously not for the benefit of the immigrants.

lazyasciiart 14 minutes ago | parent

From the article “Japan needs foreign workers because of labour shortages. But if the conditions for long-term settlement become substantially more difficult, this could potentially reduce Japan’s attractiveness to foreign workers who are considering Japan as a place to build their long-term lives,”

Specifically, Japan needs workers in human services to physically care for the very large elderly population. They need them so badly that they are in the process of implementing easier work visas for them. But do you think those jobs pay more than the national average?

ng12 10 minutes ago | parent

No, but that's the point. They don't want long-term residents, they want short-term labor. This has been the goal for a long time, and if you move to Japan expecting anything else you'll be disappointed.

legitster 5 minutes ago | parent

Think of the US - the reduction of low wage immigrants has been a large factor in our economy lately. Food prices have gone up, and in the long term there's fewer young families getting added to the social security system.

While it's cute to think that suddenly these jobs are going to Americans, but these are mostly undesirable jobs that pay less than typical jobs. To the extent that they even get filled by native workers, it drives real wages down and not up.

Meanwhile, only allowing immigrants from the top of the income bracket crowds out the top side of the job market.

It's a lowering tide that lowers all boats.

autoexec 18 minutes ago | parent

Requiring proficiency in the language is reasonable, but requiring everyone to be richer than the average member of the population and have enough money banked to live off of for 30 years seems insane. That goes well beyond simply making sure that people are able to care for themselves.

happytoexplain 18 minutes ago | parent

I think the argument is that the requirements should be stricter than "able to care for themselves".

autoexec 12 minutes ago | parent

From the article: In an announcement detailing the changes, Japan’s Immigration Services Agency stressed the need for foreigners to “live independently” and have “a stable life without the risk of becoming a burden”.

Their new requirements far exceed what is needed to meet that stated goal

jfewhfuehg 3 minutes ago | parent

You are failing to read between the lines. They simply want less foreigners. It is the same as the 100k fee for H1B.

SV_BubbleTime 14 minutes ago | parent

Seems like they want to keep their culture and their country for their people. Yes… villains, apparently.

autoexec 10 minutes ago | parent

If the goal is to preserve their culture I doubt that insisting that everyone who moves there have "fuck you" money is going to help as much as they think it will. At least some percentage of those who meet that bar will be people who are selfish and very accustomed to just doing whatever they want.

toomuchtodo 7 minutes ago | parent

They have a rapidly aging society and a high national debt load, it’s reasonable to exclude anyone who might even have a chance of being a burden. High value immigrants always have value, either in wealth or economic potential, anyone else is charity if they cannot provide surplus economic value once their own needs have been met or support themselves off of wealth or income they bring with them.

It’s unfortunate when you don’t get picked for the dodgeball team. Life is inherently unfair.

(not against foreign aid charity by any means, but delivering it distinct from immigration policy is potentially more efficient and optimal in many ways)

happytoexplain 6 minutes ago | parent

50th percentile + 30 years subsistence is not "fuck you" money, but regardless, income has multiple effects, not only cultural. They don't want to be financially supporting foreigners, of course.

Espressosaurus 4 minutes ago | parent

30 years of money banked is quite a bit no matter which way you slice it.

happytoexplain 3 minutes ago | parent

"Quite a bit", yes, I agree with that location for the goalposts.

appreciatorBus 3 minutes ago | parent

The percentage of the global population with fuck you money is so vanishingly small that a nation of 100 million such as Japan, could import them all with almost zero impact on their culture.

Furthermore, it’s deeply disingenuous to suggest that inconsiderate people only exist on the upper end of the income distribution. Assholes who want to take over and control others are found at every income level. If you want to keep your country from descending into Marxist dystopia then making fuck you money a requirement for immigration is not a terrible idea.

selfmodruntime 9 minutes ago | parent

They also want foreigners to not depend on their welfare system. The horror.

Animats 9 minutes ago | parent

The US has something like this, but the income threshold is lower.[1] US immigrants in most categories have to show that they will not become a "public charge", that is, need US welfare benefits.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-issues-guidance-...

autoexec 6 minutes ago | parent

That's reasonable too. People who move to a new country should be able to support themselves there and have a good chance to thrive in their new home. If the average income of the population isn't enough for that to be possible, your country has bigger problems than immigrants

reliabilityguy 8 minutes ago | parent

> That goes well beyond simply making sure that people are able to care for themselves.

I am not sure in understand the issue, if Japanese want this, what’s the problem?

tremon 18 minutes ago | parent

> Applicants will also be required to have a pension pot equivalent to 30 years of payouts.

Does this take into account the amount of pension a person would still accumulate under Japanese employment, or will this immediately disqualify anyone under 45?

jdiaz97 16 minutes ago | parent

there goes my dream of being a gaijin :(

lazyasciiart 10 minutes ago | parent

This is certainly going to conflict with their moves to make it easier to attract aged care workers to the country. Perhaps all the elderly people are expected to patriotically look after themselves?

https://unseen-japan.com/foreign-elderly-care-workers-japan/

Magi604 2 minutes ago | parent

They're banking on robots with advanced AI brains to take care of them.

jfewhfuehg 9 minutes ago | parent

>Foreigner

>From South Asia

>Works in tech

Go figure.

Tech became the greatest trojan horse for south asian immigration.

tock 1 minute ago | parent

Do you dislike south asians?

classified 2 minutes ago | parent

> public sentiment towards immigrants sours

I'm not up to date with Japanese news, does anyone know the reason for that?