Japan To Expand System To Attract Highly-Skilled Foreign Professionals

The Japanese government is set to newly establish a "special highly skilled personnel system" to attract more foreign professionals with advanced knowledge and skills to the country, creating new residency paths for researchers and others with an annual income of at least 20 million yen (approximately $148,000), Masakatsu Yamamoto reported for Mainichi Shimbun.

Photo Insert: The government decided to add a new way to attract highly skilled foreign workers while retaining the conventional point-based system in response to increasingly fierce international competition for human resources.

The introduction of the new system was approved at a Feb. 17 Cabinet meeting attended by relevant ministers, and the government is planning to start operating the system in April.

Under the current system, points are awarded for each category of academic background or professional career, annual salary and age among other criteria, and if the total score is 70 or higher, the applicant is granted "highly-skilled professional (i)" visa status, which allows the visa holder to stay in Japan for five years.

A type "i" visa holder can switch to type "ii" with permanent residency status after three years.

According to the Immigration Services Agency of Japan, some 35,000 foreign nationals, such as researchers, engineers, and corporate managers, were recognized as highly skilled professionals between May 2012, when the point-based system was launched, and June 2022.

The government decided to add a new way to attract highly skilled foreign workers while retaining the conventional point-based system in response to increasingly fierce international competition for human resources.

Under the new path, researchers and engineers will be awarded a type "i" visa status if they have either a master's degree or higher or at least 10 years of work experience, and an annual income of at least 20 million yen.

Corporate managers must have at least five years of work experience and an annual income of at least 40 million yen. In both cases, type "i" visa holders will be able to move to type "ii" in one year, which is shorter than the point-based system.

In addition, in order to attract young workers from overseas, graduates of universities ranked in the top 100 in the world rankings will be positioned as "future creative talent" and be given a "designated activities" residency status.

They will be allowed to stay in Japan for two years to prepare for job hunting and entrepreneurship, and will apparently be allowed to work during that period.

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