Photo/Illutration The town office of Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture. This photo was taken on Dec. 26. (Hiroyuki Yaginuma)

OIZUMI, Gunma Prefecture--Oizumi town will eliminate the nationality requirement that prevents foreign residents, which make up 20 percent of its population, from becoming public servants.

According to an announcement made Dec. 26, Oizumi has set out to become the first municipality in Gunma Prefecture to eliminate nationality prerequisites for all job categories.

The aim is to open a path for foreign residents to find employment at the town’s office.

“It is unreasonable that certain people are not qualified to take the test for civil service positions, given that they study together with others at schools in the town,” said Oizumi Mayor Toshiaki Murayama.

Murayama hopes that having non-Japanese employees at the local government’s multicultural cooperation department and educational institutes will help the town address “problems concerning language barriers and other issues.”

The nationality criteria will be removed starting with employees hired in April 2025 after passing exams held in fiscal 2024.

Examinees must be permanent residents or special permanent residents with unlimited stay permits.

Test-takers from both Japan and abroad will be screened under the same conditions and results will be determined based on general knowledge, aptitude, interviews, essays and other elements.

The exam is already known for its highly competitive ratio.

When nine individuals were hired in 2020, one in 12.9 applicants proved successful in the employment exam. While 15 and nine were employed in 2021 and 2022, the competitive rate was one in 9.8 and 14.0, respectively.

However, once hired, foreign employees could not be promoted to hold managerial positions as division chiefs or other senior posts, including managers of municipal facilities. They also could not be involved in the development of fundamental policies of the town.

Non-Japanese employees would also be unable to exert public authority for imposing taxes, seizing tax delinquents’ properties, deciding urban planning, acquiring land, conducting on-site inspections or performing similar tasks.

Local governments impose such restrictions based on the central government’s official view announced in 1953, which said that public servants involved in exercise of administrative authority or in the formation of the national will must possess Japanese nationality. 

In recent years, an increasing number of local governments have scraped the nationality requirement on some categories of jobs. 

“Hiring residents of foreign nationalities will further push forward our journey toward multiculturalism,” said Murayama. “Young non-Japanese people born in the town will have an even wider range of job opportunities and dreams.”

He continued, “I hope that they will do well as the town’s employees with no disadvantages, so that the practice will be embraced broadly among other municipalities and prefectures, too.”

Of the town’s 41,495 residents, 8,306, or 20 percent, are foreign nationals--hailing from 51 countries, including Brazil, Peru and Vietnam.

Similarly, Gunma Prefecture eliminated the nationality prerequisite for some occupations, including nurses and certified nutritionists.

In 2022, the prefecture announced a plan to abolish the nationality requirement for all job categories under the direct supervision of its governor, but no concrete actions have been taken since then.

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