The captioned symposium was held on January 31, 2006 at the U-Tant International Conference Hall of the UN University in Tokyo Japan, hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. The summary of the Symposium is outlined below:

The number of foreigners residing in Japan has been gradually increasing, but, compared with the foreigners’ ratio of other countries such as UK’s 3.8%, Germany’s 8.9%, and France’s 6.3%, the actual number is not really significant. The GISPRI’s Research Committee to “Consider the Multi-cultural Symbiotic Society” studied the current employment and residency situation of foreigners in Japan and had extensive discussions on possible measures to facilitate the acceptance of foreigners in the society. As the Chair of the Research Committee, I would like to report on the result of our study with the recommendations developed by the Committee.

In addition to the above, our Committee also studied the measures taken by European countries, which used to admit foreigners as labour force, and explored how they have attained the coexistence between their nationals and foreigners with different cultures, under the changing situation in and out of the countries including the rise of terrorism by Islam fundamentalists and other terrorist groups. Then, we conducted serious review on possible policies and measures for accepting foreigners in Japan.

First of all, I would like to outline how our discussions unfolded the issue of accepting foreigners in Japan.

In case of Japan, the continuation of labor force deficiency was the popularly accepted notion of the society until early 1980’s, so businesses and industries seriously argued for the admission of foreign labor force from Asian countries for blue color works or so called unskilled labor.

There is what we call “the rotation system,” in which foreign laborers will come and learn skills here, and return to their own countries within a few years. The example of such a system can be found in Germany. The “rotation of workers” system introduced in Germany was originally to admit foreigners for two to three years and to let them return afterward. However, those foreigners came for three years ended up staying in Germany for six years, for nine years, and finally chose to earn permanent residency in Germany.

The first case of foreign laborer admitted into Japan was those Japanese descendants from Brazil and Peru, who came to Japan in early 1990’s. Most of those descendants working in Japan today seem to wish for returning to own countries after a few years of work, but cannot. They will find no jobs there, and their children grown up in Japan may not be able to speak their own languages of Portuguese or Spanish. So, many of them would apply for permanent residency in Japan.

- On the other hand, there is the problem of illegal employment. Illegally employed laborers suffer lower wages and longer work hours with no social insurance provided by their employers.
- Another problem concerns laborers working under sub-contracts rather than direct employment by employers. In extreme cases, such grey zone jobs may involve the cases of human trafficking.

- As stated below, our Research Committee made the following conclusions and recommendations:
- First, as the policy proposal for the administration, the administration should examine and confirm the non-crime certificate of a visa applicant at consular offices overseas, and review the applicant’s proficiency in Japanese language. Typical examples of such measures can be found in the US and Canada, where those without the ability to speak in English will not be admitted under working visa. In Germany also, only those foreigners who can speak sufficient German needed for daily lives are admitted as laborers.
- Second recommendation is to create a clearing house for information. In EU, the European Parliament decided that EU member countries would standardize the information and data on foreign laborers by the year 2007.
- Third proposal is to strengthen the measures in accordance with the Laws of Labor Dispatch Businesses and Public Employment Security Offices. Labor Dispatch Business companies must be responsible for the provision of social insurances to laborers, withholding of income tax, and various other duties as employers.
- The Fourth recommendation is to enforce the guardians (parents) of foreign laborers’ school age children to send children to schools. The Ministry of Education has already revised the regulatory control to facilitate the establishment of foreigners’ schools. However, unless such schools offer minimum Japanese language education, these children will not be able to spend daily lives in Japan.
- Fifth proposal is the need to strengthen the control of foreigners involved in organized crimes. Without doubt, some foreigner crime groups tend to tie up with Japanese organized crime groups.
- Next proposal is about employment, directed toward employers, employees, or labor unions. First of all, it is necessary to mandate the employers to check the validities of foreign employees’ stay and work permits.
- Start the system of “foreigner registration passport” to help clarify the labor relationships so to ensure the collection of social insurance fees, or income taxes.
- UK and Ireland accept foreign laborers from East European countries, but the organizations providing English language education are neither national governments or local governments but labor unions. This is because these foreign laborers may join labor unions in the future. We must note that Japanese labor unions lack such thinking.
- In addition, foreign students with academic excellence studying in Japan without scholarships have difficulty finding companies that will employ them. It will be better to employ such students and let them become the top management personnel in businesses with China and other countries. Many Japanese employees without any knowledge of local situation are dispatched to China and other countries as top management personnel, but most of them will come back to Japan after failing the works there.
- Lastly, we would like to point out a proposal about education. It is necessary to set the academic excellence and financial back-up from their mother countries as prerequisites for foreign students’ admission. Once admitted, the educational organizations accepting such students must take responsibilities to provide appropriate education to them. Undoubtedly, we need to create a proper channel to accept foreign students with academic excellence and to mandate strict examination and to offer a system to exempt tuition, if necessary. Not only that we need to provide such educational opportunities to foreign students and foreign laborers’ children, but also to provide opportunities to foreign adults to learn Japanese language.

Now, the theme of this symposium is how to accept foreigners in the 21st century Japanese society. We would like to have free discussion with all of you today.

Special Lecture “Employment of foreign laborers and social fairness, the experiences of Germany”
・Lecturer Peter Hanau (Professor of Law, Korn University)

To offer social equity to foreign laborers mean not only to provide fairness in their wage and work conditions, but also to offer fair immigration policies as a whole.
In Germany, we face the decrease in population, and coming of aging society. In 2000, the Commission on Population and Development of the United Nations estimated that to maintain the current population of 80 million people in Germany would mean that Germany needs to admit 350 thousand immigrants every year. However, some statistics show that to address the issue of aging society it is necessary to admit 3.4 million immigrants each year.

Still, Germany is adhering to the policy of capping the number of immigrants at present. This is because of two reasons. One reason is that the past immigration policy was too lenient, and another reason is because unemployment rate is extremely high especially among foreign laborers.

The deficiencies in skilled workers are especially profound in the agricultural sector and information technology industry, and many employers especially entrepreneurs are secretly employing illegal immigrants or foreign laborers at lower wages.

It was the year 1973 when the inflow of foreign laborers was suddenly stopped. This was because the first Oil Crisis resulted in the increased unemployment, preventing the admissions of new foreign laborers except in an exceptional case. Yet, those foreign immigrants immigrated to Germany prior to this year chose to remain in Germany and their population in Germany doubled from 4 million in 1973 to 8 million today. The unemployment rate of foreigners has reached 16%. This is twice the rate of average German. The unemployment affected the Turkish people the most, and their unemployment rate reached 21%.

Next, I would like to talk about the time when, contrary to shutting out immigrants, we continuously opened doors to seasonal workers. Even after stopping the admissions of foreign laborer immigration on the permanent basis, Germany continues to accept temporary or seasonal workers, so the number of temporary workers helping the harvest of agricultural products by staying for several weeks to several months remains around 300 thousand people per year. During the time when Germany stopped admitting foreign laborers of permanent basis, Germany continued to have about 5 million Germans receiving unemployment benefits. This year (2006), the German Government promoted a policy to supplement 10 % of foreign laborers at agricultural farms by unemployed German nationals. Yet, the success of such a policy is quite doubtful. This is because farm owners prefer to employ fully experienced foreign laborers than inexperienced German nationals.

The general public of Germany is concerned of the possibilities that employers would rather wish to re-employ foreign laborers.

Whether it is necessary to admit more immigrants to maintain the society with decreasing population? There are arguments for and against such notion. In the discussion of pros and cons of the removal of barriers against immigration, the most important argument is about those directly linked to the aging and decreasing population. Labor force is shrinking not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. A young and qualified immigrant laborer is especially needed.

There certainly is a strong voice opposing such idea. It is certainly possible for Germany to adopt a policy to increase the number of jobs among own nationals, or of female workers, allow elderly to stay in jobs for a longer period of time, and make efforts to provide better education to unqualified or unemployed workers.

The Independence Committee firmly adhered to the principle of restrictive immigration policy. What supported the balance in immigration policy was the high unemployment rate of Germany. Under such framework, we find some concepts of immigration policies. First of all, we need to have consideration for elderly, such as personnel, including foreign nurses, to provide various nursing cares to elderly. Secondly, there is a call for immigrants who have professional qualifications we need. Thirdly, some wants immigrants from specific countries based on the bilateral agreements. Fourthly, there is a clear distinction between the strictly temporary employment and other employment that eventually lead to the permanent employment after a certain period of time. In such distinction, those immigrating to Germany will be given priorities. In order to implement such policies, the government needs to have close cooperation with relevant organizations and to enact such policies through new legislative systems.

Now, I would like to summarize my lecture. First of all, social equity requires not only the equity in wages and other work conditions, but also the steady and gradual integration and harmonization with the host country labor market or its society. Secondly, it is necessary to understand not only the current situation but also the development and deployment of labor market in the future. Thirdly, it is necessary to strictly differentiate temporary or seasonal immigration and the immigration with possibilities to become permanent. Fourthly, illegal labor and export of employment are bad alternatives that can undermine immigration. Lastly, and this is a very important point we must not forget is that immigration has many aspects other than economic aspect, including cultural and humanitarian aspects. It can never be treated as the export and import of machines. Thank you very much

Panel discussion -1
“Japan's Industrial structure, its prospect of demographical structure and foreign workers”
	Facilitator: Goro Ono, Professor, Graduate School of Economics, Saitama University
	Panelists: Hiroshi Inoue, Deputy Director of General Administration, Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation)
	Yoshihide Esaki, Director, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)
	Akira Takanashi, Professor Emeritus, Shin-shu University
	Iwao Fujimasa, Research Fellow, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies

Ono: Before starting the panel discussion-1, I would like to ask each panelist to talk about own expertise in the discussion of the common themes here that are Japan’s industrial structure, future demography, and issues related to foreigners.

Fujimasa: First of all, the basic logics presumed here is that in the developed countries with social stability, such as Japan, the economic functions must be determined by social structure and social infrastructure including population. Second point is that there are only three factors that will determine the future population. They are death rate, birth rate, and immigration rate. The problem we are to discuss here is the third factor, immigration rate.

In Japan, total number of population has started to decrease again. There was a peak in 2005, but it starts to decrease. The decrease is in the generations of productive ages of 20-64, but the population of 65 years and older has increased. The increase was seen till 2005. The period from 2005 to 2030 will be the time of population decrease. It is also the time elderly will be aged and die. After 2030, the population is likely to decrease steadily, although it may change depending on the situation. At the time of rapid population decrease, the rise in birth rate alone cannot stop the trend of population decrease.

In terms of demographic pyramid, those baby boomers will pass out, signifying a peak frequently seen in Europe. Afterward, the trend will continue in the future.

Important point is the decrease of productive age population on top of the total population decrease. As the physical age of 65 years old in 1950 is equal to today’s 85 years old, if the society continues to employ younger elderly of 65-74 years old, then the productive age population in Japan cannot be decreased.

On the land of about 1,000 people per unit of usable land, Japanese people have built a nation of the world’s number two in the manufacturing of products and consumption of energies with the self-sufficiency level of food supply at one fifth to one twentieth of European countries. Whether we have sufficient space to admit many other people from abroad or not is the question we need to consider.

Ono: Thank you very much. Mr. Inoue, please.

Inoue: We must change and develop our economic and social policies based on the presumption of drastic change in the picture of Japan’s demography. The social security reform we are considering is to put restraints on the provision of social welfare benefits. Based on such concept, we developed a vision for year 2025 in January 2003. The Vision is to implement reforms of pension and medical service systems. The major issue here is the reduction of benefits.

First of all, we are to reduce the pay-outs of pensions by 2 trillion yen and of medical services by 5 trillion yen by the year 2010. As of year 2002, it was presumed that the payouts in these two social security services would be 70 trillion yen. If left without policies the payouts will further increase to 140 trillion yen. Next, we are to reduce payouts in pensions by 6.5 trillion yen and medical services by 7.5 trillion yen during 16 years from 2010 to 2025. However, even with such measures, the sales tax should be increased to 18％, and the share of burden by citizens will be set at 61.0％. Under the simulation where “supplementing the ever decreasing number of workers by implementing various measures”, this rate will come down to about 51.4％, which is within the set target.

In this case, the population will decrease by 6.1 million during the 20 years period. So it is necessary to supplement work force population by various measures such as raising the employment rates of women and elderly, the reform and review of corporate employment methods, and the admission of foreign workers so to secure additional 6.1 million people as work force. That is what we have been thinking.

Ono: Thank you very much. Mr. Esaki, please.

Esaki: The basic stance of immigration policies in Japan is to encourage admissions of immigrants with advanced skills, but take cautions in admitting unskilled workers. However, actual market demand is the opposite of government policies. Japanese companies want laborers to jobs requiring relatively simple skills. The needs for higher skills are non-existent or rather that employers do not want to pay extra money to employ skilled foreigners. This is the sad reality of the Japanese society.

Important ting is that what supports the recent recovery of economic activities mainly among manufacturing industry, where the hollowing of industries is resolved with the return of manufacturing plants to Japan, is actually the presence of foreign workers mainly consisted of Japanese descendants.

These foreign laborers work even weekends or overnight. They are the one supporting the resurge of Japan’s competitiveness mainly in manufacturing industry. This is the reality. Unfortunately, Japanese nationals are not the one to support such economic activities.

In recognition of such facts, we find problems, in addition to the problems of future demography, that the labor market needs matches the real situation of foreigners working in the fields where Japanese people are not willing to work.

Ono: Thank you very much. Now, Prof. Takanashi, please.

Takanashi: As an economist, I would like to talk about the issue of economic policies in the society with decreasing population. In his lecture titled “Some economic consequence of decreasing population”, Keynes warned that population increase would invite the demons of poverty and vices, and population decrease would call for the demon of unemployment. Under the situation of population decrease, it is inevitable to find the decline of economic growth rate. I would like to say here that economy of population decrease is not necessarily the economy of labor deficiency.

First, it is extremely important to intentionally pursue the policies of resource-saving and energy-saving type value-added industry.

Next important thing under population decrease is technology development. The government needs to actively promote technology development in cooperation with universities and industry people. In addition, both the Government of Japan and Japanese industries need to adopt a policy to actively employ foreign professionals.

Ono: Now for the second round of the panel discussion, I would like to ask panelist to discuss any items of consideration in accepting foreign laborers.

Fujimasa: When accepting immigrants or foreign laborers, the Government needs to provide accurate estimates in the future inflow of such laborers based on its policy.

During 1995 to 2000, Japan experienced economic depression. If the trend of population change during 1995 to 2000 was to proceed unchanged, the population of foreigners would not increase. It will be only 2% of the population by 2030. On the other hand, if the population change estimated from the trend of 1990-1995 was to continue, the population of foreigners will be 11 % by 2030.

In other words, the population of a certain age groups will increase, resulting in the “baby boomers” of foreigners in Japan.

One more thing I would like to point out is that when creating a demography model of age groups, only the Tokyo megalopolis area is to see the population growth. Aged population is to remain in country-side, while foreign population is likely to be divided among different cities.

Ono: Thank you very much. Now, Professor Takanashi, please.

Takanashi: In Japan, the authorities fail to grasp the reality of foreign laborers, or their transfers between companies or jobs. The provision of social insurance to foreigners remains limited. As presented in the Proposal, it is necessary to introduce foreign laborer passport system with IC cards, so it becomes possible for the authorities to record and grasp their job changes all the time.

Next, there are problems of indirect employment or disguised employment. There are many companies in Japan that call themselves subcontractors but in reality the labor force suppliers providing laborers to manufacturing industry. These companies exploit foreign laborers under inferior work conditions to the extent of almost illegal labor, under the name of light work subcontracts. To regulate their activities, it is possible to classify such works as the subjects of dispatched works. In this way, if any of these companies make illegal labor businesses, the authorities can issue a business suspension order. Two years ago, the authorities removed the ban of laborers dispatching to the works of manufacturing processes. For the moment, it is possible for laborer dispatching companies to dispatch their laborers for the period of one year, but three years later, the time limit of dispatching will be extended to 3 years. As the dispatching of laborers for a short period of one year is not easy for labor suppliers to accept, many companies still continue subcontract works. When the time limits of laborer dispatching will be extended to three years during the next year, the shifts from subcontract companies to laborer dispatching businesses will be likely to increase.

Another thing I would like to strongly ask industries for improvement is the significantly weaker sense of compliance among laborer dispatching businesses. Such companies need to focus on the compliance.

What called 3K jobs (Kitsui-hard, Kitanai-dirty, and Kiken-dangerous) tend to concentrate in the service industry. The government needs to introduce a system, which guarantees a certain level of wages and work conditions, as a part of its public policies for the fields of human-dependent jobs.

Another thing is how to let “freeters (permanent part-timer)” to have regular jobs. It may be difficult to provide ordinary employment jobs to all those people. If they can be guided to public service jobs, then it may become possible to prevent the rise in the number of people without pensions. Since public service jobs require social contribution, it is necessary to provide such jobs to Japanese people.

Ono: Thank you very much. Now, Mr. Inoue, please.

Inoue: Right now, we do not consider supplementing the decrease of work forces by inflow of foreigners. Our policy direction is to let foreigners help build a society and economy in Japan, where diversification is appreciated. In this sense, we need to adopt a measure to realize orderly admissions, in the sense of quality and quantity, of foreign professionals into Japanese companies. Not only that we need to accept highly skilled human resources into the Japanese society, but also we must take appropriate foreign laborer admission measures that can provide benefits to those countries sending such laborers to Japan.

Another thing we need is to build a system to add values as soon as possible. Also we need to thoroughly develop a system to control the foreign laborer employment and their work situation after the entry into Japan.

To admit more foreigners will result in various social costs. We need to discuss the distribution of social burden, including which expenses employing companies are to bear, in other words to tax on foreign laborer employment. There is a concern that, if we impose tax on the companies employing foreign laborers, there may be some mid to small companies that try to hide the facts of such employment. Therefore, it may be preferable to re-distribute corporate citizen tax, imposed upon the companies of large, middle and small scales, among municipal governments for use in foreign laborer measures.

Ono: Thank you very much. Now, Mr. Esaki, please.

Esaki: The conclusion I got from my experiences of visiting various countries in the world is that no country has been able to establish and enact a well designed system for foreign laborer admission. I would like to point out five items we need to consider in accepting foreign laborer.

First, foreign laborers who have called their families to Japan and established the foundation of their lives here would no longer return to their mother countries, in principle.

Second, we must not forget that once foreigners enter into Japan, say at the Narita Airport, they will have a place to stay overnight and have jobs in the forms of subcontractors for tomorrow.

Third, we must consider the possibility that what drive foreigners to crimes may be originated from the Japanese society and the people themselves.

Fourth, we must not build a system that forgets to emphasize that laborers are humans, before considering them as mere labor force.

(Fifth,) What Japanese people do not like as jobs are the same with foreigners. They do not like such jobs either, but accept such jobs since they have to work. What we think of such situation? We must not ignore economic disparity between Asian countries and Japan. If this nation cannot stand without those laborers providing unskilled works, then we must build a system to temporarily admit such workers. The problem is how. If we want to have more skilled workers from abroad, then we need to develop a system that will make such skilled personnel enjoy living in Japan. The problem here is also how. We need to consider these two things.

Ono: Thank you very much. Now we have not discussed the issue of industrial structure in Japan, which is another item to be discussed in this session. As this is the issue close to my expertise, I will like to say a few words on this subject.

The recent discussion of foreign laborers tends to seek reasons for admitting foreign workers, whether unskilled or highly skilled, in terms of improving the international competitiveness. Actually, international competitiveness is determined by the comparative advantages of each industry. If there is a lack of unskilled workers, the industry dependent on such workers will decline. If the supply of highly skilled technicians is not enough, then the industry dependent on such technicians will be likely to decline. If an industry is to decline, other industries will experience comparative growth. The problem is what kind of industrial structure is preferable for Japan, and how to build such structure. We need to visualize the ideal industrial structure of the future, then to decide how to admit foreign workers. I would like to ask each panelist to say a few words about the vision of future industry structure. Mr. Fujimasa, please.

Fujimasa: The fact that the number of foreigners coming to Japan is extremely low illustrates the difficulty of the Japanese society to accept foreign laborers. This fact is related to almost all problems we find in industries and social costs, etc.

Secondly, the South-east Asian countries are likely to experience more drastic population decrease in the future than in Japan. Will they be willing to supply their work forces to Japan? Especially skilled workers may become much harder to get in the future. So we need to consider the changes in the industry structures of 10 years from now, 20 years from now, as well as the development in other countries.

Ono: Thank you very much. Now, Mr. Esaki, please.

Esaki: The issues of foreign laborers are same as the issues of “freeters”. The fact that the nation approves such kinds of labor forms or employment forms makes it possible for such workers, i.e. permanent part-timers and foreign laborers, to live in the society. As a result, we have seen an increasing number of people in the wage bracket of 2 to 3 million Yen. In a sense, this is our social structure, which will accelerate the changes in our industry structure.

I believe that, in a sense, it is important to consider how to use the energy derived from economic gaps with other Asian countries to develop the future vision of Japan. The basics of this issue is that to be competitive requires the employment of cheap labor, as the inevitable consequence of economics, in which labor and capital are to be incorporated into one calculation formula. This is the same as what Mr. Ono indicated, and this is what we need to challenge in the future.

Ono: Now, Mr. Inoue, please.

Inoue: Japan is an Asian country, and it is clearly the goal of Japan to develop with other Asian countries. The roles Japan can take is to become the leader in developing free economic sphere in Asia, where everything is liberalized, including the movements of people, funds, services, and products, as well as the distribution of information.

Ono: Thank you very much. I would like to ask Professor Takanashi to talk about the requests for businesses, governments, and their policies.

Takanashi: The most important thing is how to develop value-added industries. Technological development will not advance, if the labor market of professional people is too volatile. If the engineers involved in technology development start to move to other companies, company secrets will be leaked. In this sense, I believe that long-term employment system is extremely important. We must base our long term national strategy to pivot around the manufacturing industry with such employment system.

Another problem is that the jobs or labors have been overly manualized and simplified to the extreme, excessively emphasizing efficiencies. This ends up with the company management based on the notion of disposable human resources. I would like to ask that such tendency should be stopped. The important thing is to encourage and motivate laborers to work, to let them have hopes for better future, and to develop human resources in Japan.

Ono: I would like to summarize the discussion here before finishing this session. I believe that through our discussion here we understand now that the admission of foreign laborers will not be a silver bullet in the era of labor deficiency. At the same time, we find that there are as many demerits in admitting foreign laborers as merits. Therefore, when we admit foreign laborers it is necessary to organize and develop appropriate systems and environment to do so.

Lecture by invitees: “Labor force migration within EU and its future prospects”
Lecturer: Dr. Ewa Flaszynska, Head of Division, Labor Market Department, Ministry of Economy and Labor, Polish Government

When Poland joined the EU in May 2004, other European countries were concerned of massive inflows of unemployed from Poland. That was because Poland used to have one of the highest unemployment rates in EU.

During the past five years, the number of foreign laborers in EU countries is increasing, with 3.4 million in Germany, 1.6 million in France, and 1.2 million in UK. Although the employment situation in EU has improved considerably, there still remain large gaps among member countries. In terms of the integration of labor markets, there are large gaps between foreign laborers and domestic workers. In reality, immigrant laborers take various jobs as illegal laborers

The countries such as UK, Ireland, and Sweden decided to open their labor markets to Poland nationals. In other words, Polish can earn work permits in these countries, and receive labour services similar to those local people receive. In addition, Germany and Australia announced the introduction of transitional systems to open their labor market to Polish people for the next seven years.

For Polish people, any regulations on labor will be completely abolished by the year 2011, and by 2009, many Polish laborers working in EU countries are likely to get legal rights similar to those of local workers.

The most popular destination of economy-motivated Polish emigrants is Germany. During January to July of 2005, 272 thousand work permits have been issued to Polish people there mainly for seasonal works in agricultural sector and hotel services. About 160 thousand Polish people were legally employed in UK from May to September of 2005.

According to the statistics of the Poland Embassy in Ireland, about 70 to 80 thousand Polish people were working in Ireland, while in Italy about 60 thousand Polish laborers were registered at the authorities from January 2004 to August 2005. In Netherlands, 20 thousand Polish people were granted work permits. Norway is not an EU member but during May to December 2004, they issued 13 thousand work permits to Polish people.

In Spain, the number of work permits issued to the Polish people exceeded 14 thousand, as one of the popular destination of Polish emigrants especially among Polish women. The most popular job for such women workers is the harvesting of strawberries.

From May to December 2004, Sweden issued over 2 thousand work permits to the Polish people. In Australia, the issuance of work permits to the Polish people exceeded 11 thousand, and over 1300 laborers went to Cyprus. In Czech Republic, 10 thousand Polish workers were working there, and about 2,000 were doing so in Denmark.

Under the bilateral agreement between Poland and France, about 1,000 Polish seasonal workers worked in France from January to May 2005, 304 Polish people were employed under labor contract of unlimited time, and 230 more Polish people were working there in other categories. The most popular job is seasonal works in the agricultural sector.

When Polish people work within the EU member countries, the biggest problem is the language proficiency. Since the accession to EU, Poland finds more and various opportunities for employment, and expects further expansion of labor market. The number of Polish workers working abroad will continue to rise for the future, and with the globalization of labor market, the employment opportunities will likely expand into those professions requiring qualifications in a local market.

For the moment, seasonal workers are the types of employment dominating the Polish people’s jobs abroad. If the types of works will be broadened, and the globalization of labor market will continue, then it will likely lead to the leveling off of overall work conditions, including wages, in the entire EU nations.

Ikegami: I would like to start the Session-2, panel discussion titled “Lessons learned from the immigrant issues in Europe.”

Today is not the only time we find the immigration of people in Europe. However, what directly affected today’s immigration issue was undoubtedly the inflow of foreign workers that started after the World War Second. Some European researchers pointed out that the debate of immigration issue in Europe was focused on just one aspect of this issue. In other words, the debate of immigrant issue in EU focuses only on the so-called illegal immigrant issue, including the control and restrictions of number of immigrants. However, the debate hardly touches upon the problem of social and economic surroundings of immigrants, or the discrimination of immigrants.

In this Session-2 Panel Discussion, we would like to consider the immigrants issue from two aspects. One is what the foreign laborers mean to their mother countries and host countries. Another is the problem of social integration. In other words, when immigrants start to live in the host country, they will eventually consider seeking permanent residence in that country. How are they to make a foundation of their living? These two problems are the major issues we need to consider.
　
Japan is just begun to experience the immigration issue, 20 to 30 years behind Europe. So looking at their problem will likely provide important viewpoints beneficial for Japan.

First, I would like to ask Professor Tezuka to make a comment.

Tezuka: In case of Ireland, their overall population is only 4 million, but over 10 thousand Polish people go there for work. Although UK and Ireland have minimum wages, in case of UK it is 7.40 Euro, but the Polish people are hardly making that amount.

Ireland has seen the drastic growth of its IT industry, because of their lower taxes making it more advantageous to manufacture in Ireland than in the Silicone Valley. In other words, money, products, and people are all tied up through globalization. So when the Polish people would come back to their own country after working in Ireland, UK, or Germany that has 38 million populations, what can they do? Poland used to have one of the largest ship yards in Europe. How are they to resurrect such industry?

German people will say that although there are some differences in languages and cultures between Poland and Germany, there are some common aspects. They want to have more Polish people rather than to have other nationals. The football star, Littbarski, is a Cinderella boy, whose grandfather or great grandfather was from Poland.

Some say Japan needs to be like Germany. All I can say is that it will be extremely difficult to remove gaps existed. Thank you very much.

Ikegami: Thank you very much. Very conceptual talks, but I believe he identified what problems are involved. Now I would like to ask Ms. Flaszynska, please.

Flaszynska: One of the big problems in Europe is illegal labour. Even in Poland, we have illegal labour problem concerning those from Vietnam, Ukraine, Belarus and other countries. This is a big problem for legal laborers as well. In Germany, some Polish people are working there illegally. One problem is the difficulty of obtaining work permits. Some Polish people go out of the country to work without knowing that they need agreement and contract to get a work permit.

In addition the wage gap between foreign laborer and local worker is significant. For example, if the wage of German worker is 10 Euro, then that of Polish people will probably be 3 Euro. Poland is addressing such problems.

We surveyed our people working abroad whether they wanted to continue residing abroad for the future. Most of the people answered that they would like to return to Poland some day. Even those unemployed gave the same answers.

The gap between labor markets and the gap between laborers themselves involve various aspects. Despite labor market problems or unemployment problems, the number of workers seeking jobs abroad is increasing in EU, undermining employment opportunities for local people. In general, the policies in EU tend to be more protective of local workers.

Ikegami: Now, Prof. Fujikawa, please.

Fujikawa: France used to adopt several measures to promote the social integration of immigrants and their families. The categories of immigrants include immigrants from former colonies, and unskilled workers and refugees from developing countries. Currently, the categories are divided even further mainly among immigrants from developing countries.

Looking at the history of post-war immigration policies of France, they used to actively accept immigrants after the end of the war till 1965. From 1965 to 1974, when France promoted more control of immigrants, they could not take decisive actions. After 2000, there has been some swinging of policies, due to economic downturn and political background. It was the swing of policies from flow to stock, from mobility to integration. Their policies were based on the concept that illegal immigrants would obstruct the integration of legal immigrants.

As the society matures in terms of accepting immigrants, the social and political impacts of immigrants would grow, making them actively voice their social and political views and requests, influencing French society and politics.

Third stage of French immigration policies involves the second generation of immigrants, who actively participate in local politics, argue for anti-discrimination, acquisition of civil rights, and social and cultural integration, playing a certain role in French socio-politics.

It is my view that various control of immigrants introduced in France are characterized with the responses, in neutral sense, against security and social issues. Common factors in their recent policies are harsh penalties and formalism.

Netherlands became basically immigrant receiving country from early 1960’s. Since then, there have been some improvements in the social and economic situation of immigrants but their living and working conditions are far from what native Dutch people would enjoy. On the other hand, the heavy burden of national welfare for immigrants led the Netherlands to adopt a measure to restrict the admission of immigrants in recent years. In other words, they changed the policies from mass admission to selected admission. Still, the appropriateness of such policies has been continually discussed in order to respond against the workforce deficiency accompanying the aging society with lower birth rate.

In the Netherlands, also, the debate has been ongoing on the impacts of immigrants on politics and society. Basically, they concluded that the impacts of immigrants to the wages and labor market would not be too big.

Lastly, the characteristics of their national response are the introduction of integrated information control system called immigration chain. This involves the Immigration and Naturalization Office, Foreigner Police, National Security Police, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, foreigners associations, legal assistance association, etc. The organization responsible in the maintenance and control of such information chain is independent of these organizations, and the collection of information is done from upstream to downstream.

In summary, what we can learn from French experiences is the importance of immigrants as the actors of the society and economy, and their importance will grow as the experiences of immigration admissions will mature. However, despite the heightened presence and influences of immigrants in the society and economy, there has not been qualitative change in the response of administration. Such gap and the recent development there about immigrants let us find some suggestions for our future.

Next, what we can learn from the experiences of the Netherlands is the attempt to centralize information control in order to see consistencies through resident control, employment control, and departure control.

Ikegami: Thank you very much. One question I have for Ms. Flaszynska is the gender characteristics of emigrants from Poland, and the second questions if the social integration policies shift from immigrants sending countries to accepting countries under the situation of increased permanent residency of immigrants.

To Professor Tezuka, I will like to ask what we can learn from Germany’s social integration policies in relation to these. Please state both positive and negative influences.

Flaszynska: In terms of gender differences, the Polish immigrants were more males than females.
In case of Poland, there are no solid immigration policies, or laborer permanent residency policy, or policies for emigrants working abroad. These will be our future challenges.

Ikegami: Prof. Tezuka, please.

Tezuka: In Germany, they revised the Law concerning foreigners to focus more on the issue of social integration.

Turkish people, for example have different religion and language. Sometimes family dispute between parents and children lead to even murders. Many of their mothers stay at home and cannot speak Germen. In German elementary school, they have classes in the morning only. In the afternoon, there will be courses to educate mothers and children together, while separate courses are offered for children to learn mathematics, sociology or history. Schools are making efforts to educate the mothers as well, so both mothers and children can share common learning. Federal government is to provide funds for such program.

Ikegami: Thank you very much. First there was question of how to consider the issue of integration. I believe that what Professor Tezuka said was essentially the importance of immigrants to learn basic knowledge to live together in the same country. We are to conclude the Session here.

Fujikawa: The purpose and significance of this 3rd Session is to finish our discussion and find out what Japan should do as actual measures.

Another purpose is to discuss how Japan can implement policies that are endurable for years to come like the characteristics of Japanese products. It is our consensus that Japan should not swing its immigration policies, such as actively admitting unskilled workers for some time, and then shutting down doors all of a sudden. Such policy will not be something a country wishing to get prestigious position in global politics should take.

First of all, we will ask Professor Hanau to explain about the measures taken by Germany, then we will ask Mr. Nakayama of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to talk about the general policies of the Government of Japan, Mayor Hasegawa of Oizumi Town to discuss about the measures taken by local governments, and lastly, we will ask Professor Kiyonari to present issues from the viewpoint of measures taken by high-level academic institutions and by small to mid size companies.

Hanau: The topic of Session 3 is “Model study of sustainable admission of foreign workers”. Under this topic, we found two different models in the sustainable admission. One is market-oriented model, or EU model that would let the market decide both the incoming and outgoing of laborers.

Whether such a model is applicable in Japan or not would require two conditions. Unless there are economic or cultural similarities, such market model will not function. That is why the successes of market models can be found in EU.

Another model is the model of selections. One country is to set the standard to select incoming immigrants. Since it is difficult to implement a market model in Asia, this selection model will be the one for this region.

The standards of immigrant selection can be a point system. Standard are to be expressed in points for each category of education, professional experiences, language proficiency, etc. In the selection model, the inflow of foreigners with economic and cultural differences may lead to the problem of integration. Although market model is a model of non-discrimination, the selection model requires a measure to eliminate discrimination.

Fujikawa: Now, Mayor Hasegawa, please.

Hasegawa: After 17 years of accepting foreign workers, we hope you will understand how difficult it is and how big the hurdles are to coexist with foreigners who share 15.9 % of population with total 6753 foreigners, including 4959 Brazilians. To say the conclusion first, the town is close to the limit or reaching the limit.

Since the revision of the Immigration Act in 1990, we find that the inflows of foreigners lead to the pile up of administrative processing businesses since the family registers of foreigners and Japanese are handled separately. We hope that the laws will be revised to facilitate local administrations to grasp the movement of people. At the moment, the Ministry of Law is making efforts to do so, and we hope that the revision will reflect the reality. It is impossible to have sustainable admissions of foreigners only by the efforts of local communities. I think we need to let children learn Japanese languages well will be the best weapon for their permanent residency in Japan. I also hope that the authorities will consider entering into bilateral agreements with immigrants’ mother countries to introduce more comprehensive support systems covering the entire fields of the society. I am sure that these and the revisions of laws conforming to the reality in Japan will be extremely helpful for municipal governments.

Fujikawa: Thank you very much, now I will like to ask Mr. Nakayama, the Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his comments.

Nakayama: First of all, I would like to say these are my personal comments.

The issues concerning the admissions of foreigners became apparent after the revision of the Immigration Act in 1990, which made it possible for Japanese descendants to have permanent residency. Since 1990’s, we found the inflow of what we called new comers from China, Brazil, Philippines, Peru, and other countries, resulting in a vast change in the composition of foreigners staying in Japan.

The 1990 revision of the Immigration Act that allowed the Japanese descendants to have permanent residency was decided not from the viewpoint of admitting labor force, but rather from the humanitarian viewpoint that it would be natural to allow Japanese descendants to have permanent residency in Japan. However, laborer brokers actively maneuvered the admissions of Japanese descendants since permanent residents have no restrictions on their works in Japan. As a result of such phenomenon, we find the problem of towns with concentrated population of foreigners. It is certainly the responsibility of the national government to consider what a nation can do to resolve such problem. In this regards, it will be important to address the issue cross-cuttingly among governmental ministries and agencies.

In order for the permanent resident to truly become the members of the Japanese society, the most important factor is the Japanese language proficiency. I understand that Germany has implemented quite advanced measure in this sense. Fundamentally, they will mandate all long stay foreigners staying longer than one year to take the comprehensive course for 630 hours, with German lessons for 600 hours, and orientation for 30 hours. The federal government would provide about 200 million Euro as a budget for this program. Today, the Government of Japan led by the Cabinet Office started inter-ministerial discussion on the development of such a system to control the foreigners’ stays in Japan. It is my personal opinion that not only the development of technical details of controlling foreigners’ stays, such as the revisions of the Immigration Act and Foreigner Registration Law, would be needed but also to develop a system to provide sufficient administrative services to foreigners staying in Japan would be important. And for this, we need cross-sectoral discussion between ministries and agencies.

Lastly, I would like to introduce the prospective situation of foreigner admissions for the future. In the Cabinet Resolution “the basic plan on the econo-financial management and structural reform 2005” in 2005, so-called big-boned reform, it was stated “to promote the admissions of highly skilled human resources in order to use the overseas human resources, while reviewing the admissions of foreign laborers in the fields not classified as professional or technological fields at present from the comprehensive viewpoint, including the consideration on the effects to the lives of Japanese nationals. In addition, promote the development of favorable environment for foreigners’ lives and employment as well as the provision of Japanese language education and local human resources development, in order to let the foreigners working in Japan to fully demonstrate their full abilities.” That is what we aim for. In order to develop concrete measures to realize such policy, I believe it is necessary and possible to develop a certain consensus with the efforts of the Government as a whole and by making use of presentations given today.

Fujikawa: Thank you very much, Now, I will like to ask Professor Kiyonari for his comments.

Kiyonari: In regards to small to medium companies, those small to medium companies with fundamental technological advantages share extremely important positions in the resurrection of Japanese manufacturing industry today. It is most important to thoroughly understand technologies and skills involved as well as the workforce to connect technologies and skills. The problem Japan is facing today is to secure workforces with such technologies or skills. The reason why young Japanese do not come into such jobs are not only that they are 3K jobs (hard, dirty and dangerous), but also to learn necessary technologies and skills will require extreme patience and endurance without sufficient pays. In the case of IMM Japan, they accept 2000 to 3000 personnel per year from abroad, provide training for 3 years, and let them return to their own countries. In order to systematize this program for a longer period of time, there is a barrier in developing and providing some kind of systems for training such technicians, and in dispatching such individuals to individual companies. In the case of Germany, it is a dual system of professional training. Considering the present day advances of technologies requiring highly professional knowledge, it is necessary to consider the development of dual system like Germany, in addition to OJT at the site.

Secondly, it is important to consider how to admit professionals, especially research and development personnel. In Japan, there are about 18 locations of intellectual clusters or research and development sites, under the project of the Ministry of Education and Sciences. However, we already find the limits there because the entrepreneurship is limited to Japan.

Third problem concerning small to medium companies is the decrease of number of such companies since there are more companies closing rather than starting. It is important to start the launching of new companies and to admit foreigners only for such companies. To nurture such entrepreneurs and to admit entrepreneurs selectively is the measure already adopted in Singapore, New Zealand, or Guang Zhou Province of China. I think it is better for Japan to adopt such a system.

Next, I would like to point out two issues in relation to high education. With the rapid decrease of 18 years olds, there are some universities having difficulty to fill their fixed number of students especially in the area of population decrease. The problem is that some universities, especially private universities, admit foreign students too easily.

In Germany, there are many Turkish children who can speak only German. When such children enter the German universities, they will send such children to Turkish universities in association with German universities, and let them do joint researches at both German and Turkish universities. The research subjects are usually cultures or social studies addressing social issues with immigrants.

Japan may be in a good position to start such a program with China, for instance.

Fujikawa: Now I would like to ask Mayor Hasegawa and Mr. Nakayama to discuss about the role sharing of foreigner admissions and sustainable policies. How the national government and municipal governments can share their roles in these issues?

Hasegawa: Since foreigners move around Japan quite rapidly it is difficult to find out the actual situation. Considering the financial difficulty of municipal governments, we would like to ask human and economic assistance from the national government. Also, it will be quite effective to have the linkage between the mother country and host country to let the immigrants be proficient in Japanese language and have sufficient learning of basic rules in living in Japan at the time of their entry into Japan. Such immigrants with sufficient knowledge will be able to live anywhere in Japan without any problems.

Fujikawa: Now, Mr. Nakayama, please.

Nakayama: I think the situation is quite serious in terms of difficulty municipal governments face in providing administrative services to foreigners, due to the difficulty of grasping the actual situation of foreigners’ residence. Although foreigners registered under the foreigner registry are mandated to submit transference report, it is difficult to find their movements when they change residence almost every week. The national government is currently studying how to grasp the actual residence of foreigners.

In regards to the comment requesting the national government to provide cultural orientation and Japanese language programs for immigrants, German government has been implementing such comprehensive educational course there. However, under the current Immigration Act it is very difficult, in a legal sense, to make it the responsibility of the national government to provide Japanese language education. I would let relevant ministries and agencies know about the requests. I think that we need some political leadership to let relevant ministries and agencies to jointly address the issue under a grand strategy.

Fujikawa: Thank you very much. Next, I would like to ask Prof. Hanau about the sharing of social cost burden in broader aspects of pensions, education, and human resource development.

Hanau: There is a concept that for those companies employing foreign laborers need to share a certain cost burden for the society. There are two reasons for such concept.

One is the cost-sharing principle. And another is that in labour market, there is a notion for the need to integrate women workers in the society, as well as to address the social problem of elderly employment. While the considerable part of women and elderly in the work force are considered as the responsibility of the federal government, the employment of foreigners is under the responsibility of companies as long as they have obtained legal permits to employ such workers. So it was thought that companies should bear some costs. That is the concept.

Fujikawa: Lastly, I would like to talk about the attitude of Japanese people in accepting foreigners, in terms of the sustainable admissions of foreigners. In Japan, people consider that foreigners have higher crime rates. Is that true? There is a question about such attitude Japanese people take. Mr. Nakayama, please.

Nakayama: First of all, about the higher crime rate of foreigners. The crime rate of foreigners is not necessarily higher than the crime rate of Japanese people. However, their crimes are quite different from the crimes generally seen in Japan, so Japanese people tend to get stronger impression of foreigners’ crimes.

In addition, how Japanese people accept foreigners will depend on the selection model. Therefore, it is important to set objective standards in selecting foreign workforce. To clarify what kinds of laborers are welcome in Japan and to let other countries aware of such standards, and then to treat such laborers equally as a member of the Japanese society after entry into Japan would be quite important.

Fujikawa: Thank you very much, I find that fairly large number of people indicate that the issue in the acceptance of foreigners is the problem of our tolerance. It is to firmly establish the way of Japan, the thinking way of Japan, and Japanese language.
Professor Takanashi, will you indicate how Japan should act in terms of this issue.

Takanashi: It is difficult to develop a society where people sacrifice themselves to coexist with other races and other ethnic groups

In essence, if Japanese population decreases, it does not necessary bring labor force deficiency. Rather it may bring serious problems in the employment and unemployment situation. For the national interests, we have no choice but to prioritize the employment of Japanese nationals.

However, to admit those individuals with advanced skills and technologies from abroad will be quite beneficial for the technology development of Japan, and most likely promote the economic development in Japan. So, we need to effectively use the system that opens doors for such workers.

Fujikawa:　Thank you very much. Lastly, I would like to summarize the discussion of this Session briefly as a facilitator, and later I will ask Professor Tezuka to summarize the entire Symposium.

Fundamentally, to admit foreigners in a sustainable manner will necessitate Japan to clearly indicate what kind of foreigners we will like to come to Japan. We need to clarify the image of immigrants, which may reflect how we perceive ourselves in the society.

Finally, I would like to ask Professor Tezuka to summarize today’s discussion.

Tezuka: In this world of globalization, Japan is one country that cannot do something ordinary in the world. (That is the acceptance of foreign workers.)

There are various problems involved in Japanese labour market. There are wage differences of almost ten times between regular employees and temporary job staff in the case of male workers. There are some jobs provided under the official Law of Labor Dispatch Businesses and those disguised subcontract jobs. For both such temporary works, foreigners, especially Japanese descendants, are pushed in. So Japanese companies must reflect and review whether it is better to construct as many plants abroad as possible, or whether expansion is the only way forward.

I have studied with Professor Hanau for many years. In Germany, there were several problems about immigration. The current motto of EU is “EU as one.” Why we cannot say “Asia as one” in case of Japan? When we consider the reason why we work this hard, it is because we want Japan to be a country respected in Asia. Japanese people want to become people well respected. That is the reason why we established this Research Committee, and to present the proposal introduced to you today.

Thank you very much all for coming to this Symposium today.