It seems Japan is trying to reap one the benefits of globalization–cheap labor for low-skilled jobs–with none of the social turmoil that comes with companies offshoring or outsourcing to China.
Do you really think people need to be trained in manual labor work for eight years? Or does the trainee classification allow the employer to get away with China-like employment conditions (or at least, substandard in comparison to Japanese employees’ conditions) without the bother of actually going to China?

Will such trainees be offered jobs once their eight years are up as Durf suggests? Possibly–but I’d bet any such offers would be for doing exactly the same thing they’ve been doing for the past eight years. Managerial training, design or planning work (the real value adds) are not on the menu.

And that doesn’t even touch on the obvious social dangers inherent in creating a racially distinct underclass with no hope of bettering itself, and no motivation to assimilate.

I’ve been in Japan for more than 20 years, but I’m still on a work visa now, and as such have no *right* to stay here forever. If I take citizenship or get permanent residency the game changes, of course. I don’t see how “accruing the right to stay in Japan” could automatically enter the picture for a non-citizen (excluding special cases like the zainichi Koreans and so forth). It’s certainly not the way it happens in any other country I can think of.

As for the trainee, I think they should be regarded as workers, and as such they should be granted the same right as Japanese temporary workers.