Photo/Illutration Technical intern trainees and their supporters march in a Tokyo protest calling for an end to the program. (Makoto Oda)

Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa pledged on July 29 to seek a “historical resolution” of the many issues and problems facing technical intern trainees in Japan.

“We will work to create a framework that has no divergence between the objective and actual situation” surrounding the technical intern training program, Furukawa said at a news conference. 

The program was initially designed to transfer technology to developing nations, but critics say it is nothing more than a way to fill personnel shortages in areas where Japanese avoid working because of the arduous nature of the job.

A panel of experts will be set up this autumn to discuss the specific measures to go into the new program.

“I want to seek a historical resolution to issues that have plagued the program for many years,” Furukawa said.

Since February, Furukawa has been sounding out various experts about the technical intern training program and the specified skilled worker program that allows foreign workers into the country in 12 designated industrial sectors facing chronic personnel shortages.

The study sessions focusing on the technical intern training program have led to the highlighting of many problems.

These problems include foreign workers being placed in inappropriate worksites due to their lack of information, the huge debts they must shoulder in their home nations just to come to Japan, the lack of agencies to consult when the trainees are abused--caused by a ban on seeking work at other companies--and the insufficient support framework provided by organizations that are supposed to supervise the trainees.

In the course of such discussions, Furukawa said there were a number of views raised that still stick in his mind.

One was that the program should be combined with the specified skilled workers program and turned into a program that is openly used to bring in foreign workers.

Another was the need for a consistent system that covered all foreign workers--from the trainees and specified skilled workers to highly skilled professionals, such as engineers and specialists in humanities and international services.

Furukawa also laid out four fundamental points that would be followed in making recommendations for the new system.

One was that the system be coherent and have no divergence between its aim and the actual situation.

The second was to ensure that trainees received sufficient information and did not have their rights violated.

The third was to create a system that was advantageous to both the trainees and Japanese as the foreign workers went about working and living in Japan.

The final point was to contemplate how to create a society where Japanese could co-exist with the foreign workers and to revise the system so that it was in line with such thinking.

The technical intern training program, which began in 1993, had about 410,000 trainees in Japan by the end of 2019. That declined to about 280,000 by the end of 2021 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The specified skilled workers program began in fiscal 2019, and there were about 80,000 foreigners with the visa status by the end of May.

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