Japan: Vietnamese workers on skilled visas report unpaid wages, inability to change jobs & forced work outside visa requirements
"Skilled foreign workers face problems in Japan,"
More foreign workers are coming to Japan with the visa status called "Engineer/Specialist in humanities/International services." Their number has tripled over the past decade to over 400 thousand...
While the visa system seems to work well for some employees and companies, individual experiences vary. Other Vietnamese workers have been speaking up about the problems they face.
A video posted on social media last December reveals some of these issues.
[Yoshimizu Jiho, the representative director of the Japan Tomoiki Association] says job mismatches between the visa requirement and the actual work have also led to problems.
One of the organization's clients came to Japan from Vietnam as a skilled worker, after she paid more than 7,000 dollars as a commission fee to a broker.
She says the company that hired the client put her to work cleaning restaurants and hotels. She claims it then stopped giving her any assignments at all and she could no longer support herself...
Yoshimizu also emphasizes the lack of a proper support system for the people with this visa. The category does not require a high level of language ability, and some can't speak any Japanese.
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