Photo/Illutration Foreign trainees and their supporters call for abolishing the technical intern training program at a rally in Tokyo in June. (Makoto Oda)

The government is proposing to abolish the technical intern training program, criticized for utilizing foreigners to fill labor shortages, and replace it with a new system that would better train workers and allow them to change jobs more easily. 

In principle, foreign trainees are not allowed to switch workplaces, which is seen as a hotbed of human rights violations, such as outright violence and unpaid wages.

Under the proposal presented at a government panel of experts on April 10, such restrictions on workplace transfers, a fundamental right of workers, would be “relaxed” to a certain extent.

The intern program, whose stated objective is to transfer technology to developing countries, has been criticized as a loophole to supply an inexpensive workforce to labor-intensive industries.

The government proposal prepared based on the panel’s discussions called for the creation of a new system defined as one designed to both “train” and “secure” manpower.

Under the new system, foreign workers are expected to improve their job skills while working in Japan and upgrade their status of residence to the specified skills visa.

The specified skills visa was introduced in 2019 as a way to accept foreign workers in industry sectors suffering from labor shortages, such as agriculture, construction and nursing care.

The proposed new system will accept foreign workers in the same industry categories as the specified skills visa.

Some members of the expert panel, which was set up last autumn, had called for incorporating the technical intern training program into the specified skills visa system.

But the idea was dropped because the government has as a basic policy said Japan will exercise extra caution in accepting foreign workers for menial jobs.

The government proposal is the draft outline of an interim report that the expert panel is expected to compile at the end of April. The final report is expected in autumn.