Liberal Japan

I want to present some data on the trainee system in Japan. Most information here pertains to both the Industrial Trainee Program and the Technical Internship Program.

The source of this information is cited at the end of this blog entry.

Particular attention here will be applied to JITCO (Japan International Training Cooperation Organization) trainees.

First, let’s look at a graph which shows the number of foreign trainees in Japan:

This basically corresponds to these numbers

year National JITCO other
1991 10,509 160 32,980
1992 11,298 8,067 24,262
1993 13,474 13,440 12,881
1994 14,813 12,879 8,920
1995 13,176 18,264 9,151
1996 12,593 23,078 9,865
1997 13,222 28,011 8,361
1998 14,136 26,075 9,586
1999 13,189 25,631 9,165
2000 13,030 31,898 9,121
2001 12,626 37,423 9,015
2002 12,351 39,724 6,459
2003 13,473 43,457 7,887
2004 13,817 51,012 10,530

It should be obvious here that most growth has taken place in trainees recruited through the assistance of JITCO. (”National” represents trainees brought to Japan with some form of direct involvement from the government.)

What is JITCO?

JITCO came into existence in 1991. Describing its technical functions is a bit complicated, but simply put it assists companies and groups of companies that seek trainees. JITCO was formed from a partnership of sorts between five ministries:

Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport

Many of those running the JITCO derived their position through amakudari from the various ministries listed above. At least one person has pointed out how profitable JITCO is and asked where all the profit JITCO makes goes (see here). Certainly considering how much money JITCO is actually receiving, such a question seems warranted. It is, after all, a very profitable venture.

Now let’s have a closer look at the JITCO trainees. Let’s look at the next graph:

If one looks at this chart, listed are two somewhat distinct entities that take in trainees. These are dantai (団体）and kigyou (企業). What should be clear here is that the number of trainees going to dantai has increased considerably, while the number of trainees going to kigyou has not.

Here are the raw numbers:

year dantai kigyou
1992 2,537 5,530
1993 4,300 7,778
1994 4,436 7,676
1995 5,941 10,796
1996 9,895 13,183
1997 15,172 12,839
1998 14,867 11,208
1999 16,480 9,151
2000 22,875 9,023
2001 27,470 9,953
2002 30,903 8,821
2003 34,851 8,606
2004 43,118 7,894

So what are dantai and kigyou?

Kigyou basically means company. So the numbers in the far right column are basically trainees going to companies.

Dantai basically means group. And what you have here in many cases are very small companies that find it difficult to procure and provide for trainees on their own directly (even with JITCO assistance). So they form various organizations together with other small companies such that they can procure and provide for trainees.

It’s important to note that before 1990 this was not possible. Previously, for the most part, only multinational corporations, presumably with overseas branches, were able to procure trainees. There were specific requirements that were weakened in 1990 as far as immigration law that made it possible for smaller companies to pool their resources together in order to get trainees. Moreover, despite negative consequences of this weakening of immigration law, the law was further weakened in 1993.

If there were negative consequences, then why was the law further weakened? Because while the trainee program masks itself in the tatemae of being a program designed to help underdeveloped countries, the honne or reality is that it is a guest worker program whose purpose is to help Japan not underdeveloped countries.

Multinational corporations with overseas branches have a genuine need to allow foreigner nationals to come over to Japan. But how about small clothing factories with barely 19 workers? Or how about small time food makers? Even though these companies don’t have any presence overseas, by merely being Japanese they supposedly operate using advanced procedures that would be useful for trainees to learn. Even if one buys this implausible explanation, one is forced to ask, just why do such small companies want to share their “advanced” techniques with overseas nationals from underdeveloped countries? Out of the goodness of their hearts? Clearly there must be profit in it.

If one reviews the literature and the media discussion revolving around the idea of a guest worker program in the late 1980’s, then it becomes very clear that the loosening of the immigration law in 1990 to allow more trainees was clearly to help solve potential labor shortages in Japan. The government did not want a guest worker program despite many cries from the business sector for such a program. Instead, the government loosened immigration law in regards to trainees.

Let’s look at some more statistics. First another graph. This graph will show the size of the various companies that trainees get sent to. Size is gauged by looking at the number of workers at each company

Here are the raw numbers:

# of workers at company / # of JITCO trainees / cumulative % of all trainees

1 to 19 / 19,523 / 38.3
20 to 49 / 6,314 / 50.7%
50 to 99 / 7,167 / 64.7%
100 to 199 / 838 / 76.1%
200 to 299 / 2,814 / 81.6%
300 to 999 / 4,406 / 90.2%
over 1000 / 4950 / 100%

It should be clear here that most JITCO trainees are going to fairly small companies. Most of these companies do not have the facilities to train trainees, but instead procures trainees as a form of inexpensive unskilled labor.

Here is the industry breakdown showing where each JITCO trainees was going in 2004:

Here are the raw numbers for JITCO trainees in 2004:

Industry (Japanese in parenthesis)…………….number…..percentage
clothing (衣類 その他機械製品製造業)………..14078…….27.6%
foodstuff (食料品製造業)……………………………7426……..14.6%
transport (輸送用機械器具製造業)………………3561………7%
electrical machinery (電気機械器具製造業…..4003………7.8%
construction (建設関連工事業)……………………2722………5.3%
metal working (金属製品製造業)…………………2881 ……..5.6%
agriculture (農業)……………………………………..3444 ……..6.8%
plastics (プラスチック製品製造業)……………..2084……..4.1%
textiles (繊維工業 )…………………………………….1136……..2.2%
precision machinery (精密機械器具製造業) ….1023……..2%
general machinery (一般機械器具) …………….1368……..2.7%
other (その他)………………………………………..7286…….14.3%

In all these industries, we are talking about very small shops and factories, where a lot of manual labor is done. Clothing and foodstuff alone account for 42.2 percent of the total.

Another statistic worth looking at is monthly pay. Industrial trainees are not supposed to receive pay, even though the reality is that they are working in most cases as unskilled laborers. They can though receive a sort of allowance.

The following chart shows what the average allowance has been over the last several years:

Here are the raw figures for JITCO industrial trainees:

Year / dantai trainees / kigyou trainees
1997 ¥85,554 ¥105,200
1998 ¥83,324 ¥101,017
1999 ¥77,319 ¥102,154
2000 ¥71,685 ¥98,286
2001 ¥68,126 ¥94,090
2002 ¥66,437 ¥89,780
2003 ¥64,891 ¥89,780
2004 ¥64,024 ¥84,819

Note that those trainees going to companies through dantai with the assistance of JITCO are getting an average of ¥64,024 per month (in other words half are getting less than that!). That is a startlingly low salary to be paid in the world’s second largest economy. It is only made possible because the system pretends to be other than what it really is. The reality is, of course, that it is a guest worker program.

As far as technical trainees (as opposed to industrial trainees) they are allowed a salary, but even here over 97% make far below the average salary of a high school graduate in Japan. Moreover, the salary paid to technical trainees has been dramatically falling in recent years.

Most of this information is from the book following book:

外国人研修生：時給３００円の労働者
Gaikoku-jin Kenshuusei: Jikyuu 300-en no Roudousha
(Foreign Trainees: The 300 yen an hour laborers)

The book is edited by:
外国人研修生問題ネットワーク
Gaikoku-kenshuusei Mondai Nettowaaku
Foreigner Trainee Network

Pages 70 to 82 presents an informative essay by Kawakami Sonoko (川上園子) from which most of the information presented above comes.

Kawakami Sonoko’s information in turn came from the following source:
JITCO 白書
JITCO Hakusho
JITCO White Paper