The fist knowledge you should know about working in Japan.

Japan is a beautiful and developed country and this is so attractive even for natives. But there are very few and less information in non-Japanese languages. Especially VISA types are very important. So I will show you some data on non-Japanese and popular VISA types.

You can plan which visa to get after reading this text.

HOW MANY NON-JAPANESE ARE LIVING IN JAPAN?

It is said that there are over 2,800,000 non-Japanese people living in Japan. That's 2% of all the population. This number is increasing year by year.

When we see the population, the nationalities list looks like below.

1. China ( 28% )
2. Korea ( 16 % )
3. Vietnam (13%)
4. Philippines (10%)
5. Brazil (7%)
6. Nepal (3.3% )
7. Taiwan (2%)
8. Indonesia (2%)
9. USA (2%)
10. Thailand (2%)

With China and Korea, we have a long history and many of them who live in Japan have permanent residency VISA.

What you can do by your VISA

There are some types of VISA to get from outside of Japan.

Working VISA

→ This is for work. In this type, again there are some types of VISA. And you can do the work only relates to your VISA. The most popular one is "Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services". By this, most of white colorwork will be allowed. ( Engineering, Sales, Recruiting, translation, and so on .... )

Since this VISA allowed high-level work, you are required high-level special skill. You need the degree of university or college in your country or degree of school in Japan. Also, you need an offer from a Japanese company.

If your role uses high communication skill, you don't need high-level Japanese but most of the role related to this VISA needs high communication. So to get a job offer, you may need a high-level Japanese.

To Get This visa　→　Start study Japanese and improve your skill. then start job hunting. As soon as you get an offer from the company, you can apply.

Technical Interns

Recently the number of VISA is increasing. This VISA allows field works and simple tasks. Like cleaning, construction (field work ) , agriculture, fishing, and so on...

The purpose of this VISA is to get knowledge of Japan and use the knowledge for your country's development.

This VISA has 3 stages. 1st one lets you stay 1 year, 2nd and 3rd let you stay 2 years each. So maximum of 5 years' stay.

To get this visa, you will apply to the agent company in your country and get some working training including Japanese. Also, you need to pass the exam at the end of the training.

Not everyone but the people from the countries where has the contract about this project can get this VISA. ( Mostly Asian country )

To get this job → look for the agency in your country and contact them.Also they might ask you some money for training. In many cases, the fee is too high. Compare some agencies and apply for good one.

Special Activities

You can do work which doesn't related to your study too.

To get this VISA, you need to graduate from 4 years Japanese university and pass JLPT N1.

Specific　Skilled

There are 2 types in this category.

#1: need about N4 level Japanese language. only 14 types of work will be allowed to work. The maximum number of years you can stay is 5.

#2: Only for shipbuilding and construction work, you can get this VISA after the VISA #1. No limit of the visa as long as your company updates it, and also you can bring your family together (wife, husband, and children)

To get this VISA, you need to pass the exam for the VISA application and apply it from your side. Then registrate to the agency in Japan and wait for the job.

Student VISA

VISA for students. With this VISA, you can work 28 hours/ week.

My advice is not to focus on the job only with a student VISA. You can get way better job if you focus on your study and improve your Japanese skill.

To get this VISA, you need to pass the entry exam for the school. Also the study fee will be the cost.

"Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services"VISA

If you want to stay longer, get a better salary, and improve your skill, I think working VISA will be the one. But please understand that basically the visa is for the specialist who is difficult to looking for in Japan.

Till last year, big outsourcing companies, especially in IT domain, recruited a lot of junior level engineers with daily conversational level Japanese.

Then what happened is COVID 19. Most of them couldn't find a project and get fired because of the technical skill level and Japanese level. So please be careful when you get a job with a working VISA but you are junior level or with daily conversational Japanese skill. ( under N3 ) Because basically most of the companies require N1 - N2 level for this visa type.

Many types of VISA.

There are many types of VISA. In the working VISA, actually there a lot too. For example, doctor visa, artist visa, and so on.

So make sure that your purpose of living in Japan is clear and choose the right VISA to get.