What SSW Visa could mean for Filipinos who were aspiring to work in Japan?

What the recently announced Specified Skills Visas could mean for Overseas Filipino Workers seeking jobs in Japan.

For Filipino’s, we have heard a lot of stories about Japan, Working conditions, big Salary, and the beauty of the place itself! We have this inward desire, that if someday there will be a chance to choose where to work abroad and Japan will be included on that opportunity, we will 100% choose Japan.Well, this is great news for us Filipinos.

Prime Minister Abe announced the creation of a new visa type, provisionally named the “Specified Skills” ( tokutei ginou , special skills ) visa from April 2019.The policy shift signaled an open door to Japan’s much-needed additional foreign labor that would help fill the gaps in sectors that have a particular strain.

 

The government proposed to allow more than 500,000 foreign workers to be employed by five industries by 2025.These industries were agriculture, nursing care, construction, shipbuilding, and lodging and hospitality.In a significant departure from current laws, the visa requirements would not include a degree and would allow holders the chance to upgrade to permanent residency in Japan .

Since then, it has been drafting the details and a recent update shows that there will, in fact, be two new visa statuses: Specified Skills 1 and Specified Skills 2, which will potentially apply to 14 industries in total.The industries that will qualify are to be jointly decided by the Ministry of Justice and the ministry responsible for the industry itself.

On the next blog, we will take a look at these two new visas in greater detail, and examine what they might mean.