A government panel on Wednesday proposed replacing Japan's controversial trainee program for foreigners with a new system with more flexibility and oversight to prevent human rights infringements, according its draft report.
The panel called for enabling trainees who attain a certain level of skills and Japanese language ability after working for a year at one place to transfer to another within the same business sector, which is not allowed in principle under the present system.
Supervising organizations, which act as brokers and also supervise companies accepting foreign trainees, will be restricted from holding executive posts at the companies concerned as the practice has been criticized for leading to their failure to prevent abuses against trainees, such as harassment and unpaid wages.
The draft will be finalized in November following further discussions, and the government will seek to submit related bills to the ordinary parliamentary session next year.
The new system would clearly state that it is intended to secure and develop human resources. It calls for bolstering the trainees' skills and facilitating their shift to the specified skilled worker system that allows for long-term employment and residency.
The current program's stringent rules, which basically do not permit trainees to change workplaces, as well as the lack of support from supervising organizations have led to cases of trainees running away.
But the new system will allow trainees to transfer if they have the requisite Japanese language level and have passed the skills test.
Regarding support networks, the panel's draft suggested hiring external lawyers to monitor the supervising organizations run by the chamber of commerce and other business-related groups.
It also outlined plans that would make companies pay commission fees that trainees are often asked to shoulder. Currently, many workers go into debt to come to Japan under the program.
As of the end of June, there were around 358,000 foreign trainees in Japan.
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