Hello, this is Takeuchi from IMS Legal Professional Corporation. We have been receiving more inquiries about Japan's "Specified Skills" program, aimed at addressing labor shortages. While many have heard of the program, they are not clear on what it entails or the difference between Specified Skilled Worker (i) and (ii). Today, I will explain what the Specified Skills program involves.
What is the Specified Skills program?
The Specified Skills program, which started in April 2019, accepts foreigners with significant expertise, experience, and skills in specific industrial sectors in Japan where there is a labor shortage. This visa status aims to alleviate these shortages and improve services and quality. The fields covered include agriculture, fisheries, food service, lodging, and construction; recently, four new fields such as automotive transport and railways have been added, expanding to 16 sectors. Unlike other work visas that limit activity and do not allow engagement in so-called "unskilled labor," the Specified Skills visa permits a broader range of activities.
For example, in the restaurant industry under the Specified Skills in "food service," one can perform various tasks such as cooking, seating customers, handling complaints, and managing store operations like ordering and creating menu books. Normally, traditional work visas require restaurant owners to have a "Management" visa, cooks to have a "Skills" visa, and those in external sales or management to have a "Technical/Humanities/International Services" visa, with each visa restricting the types of activities that can be performed. However, these activities are permissible under the Specified Skills visa.
Specified Skilled Worker (i)
The status "Specified Skilled Worker (i)" allows foreign nationals to stay and work in Japan for up to five years if they pass a skills exam or transition from technical training, and they must have at least N4 level Japanese proficiency. If their stay exceeds five years, they must either change their visa status or move to Specified Skills 2 or return to their home country. Additionally, this stay does not count towards the employment period required for permanent residency applications.
Responsibilities of the accepting organization
The accepting organizations must provide obligatory support to Specified Skills (i) foreign nationals, including securing housing, accompanying them for mobile phone contracts, and bank account setups. This includes mandatory quarterly interviews and reporting to the Immigration Bureau as "regular notifications." If an organization cannot handle all these responsibilities internally, they can delegate all or part of these tasks to registered support organizations, such as administrative solicitor corporations.
Specified Skilled Worker (ii)
"Specified Skilled Worker (ii)", as described in the Ministry of Justice's guidebook, is for foreign nationals engaged in skilled labor in specific industrial sectors, requiring over two years of practical experience and playing a leading or technically instructive role. Unlike Specified Skills 1, there are no limitations on the duration of stay, and the period can be counted towards the employment period needed for permanent residency applications. A significant difference is that it allows the holder to bring their spouse and children to live together in Japan.
In summary, Specified Skilled Worker (i) and (ii) differ in terms of the maximum period they provide labor force security for, or offer practical skills and labor for a medium to long term, as managed by the Immigration Services Agency looking towards the future.
In any case, it is a fact that they are responsible for expanding the workforce in specific industrial sectors, and just recently, the Tokyo Immigration Bureau was reported to be doubling its staff to handle the evaluations due to the increasing demand. We continue to closely monitor this growing field.
Our company also supports changes to Specified Skilled Worker or renewal applications, so please feel free to contact us for assistance.
For more information, please contact us below ↓
https://imsvisa.support/en/contact/
