AFP, Tokyo :
At an office in Tokyo, a group of asylum seekers clutching resumes listened to three Japanese companies describe their openings-rare opportunities in the country’s often impenetrable job market.
Japan accepts only a handful of refugees each year and they face hurdles to employment that can seem almost insurmountable, including language requirements, cultural barriers and discrimination.
But a handful of companies, driven partly by labour shortages, are now hiring refugees.
Among them is Dairyu, a styrofoam manufacturer whose CEO Kenichi Osaka was hoping to find two new employees at a job fair held Monday by the Japan Association for Refugees, an NGO.
“We need your work, and your novel ideas that Japanese people don’t come up with,” he told the asylum seekers in English.
With its rapidly ageing society, Japan has an unemployment rate of just 2.4 percent, the lowest in 25 years.
“We want to hire refugees because there are not enough workers in Japan,” said Osaka, whose 200 employees include around 20 foreigners.
“And Japanese are so strict with rules… we are looking for ideas that are unexpected and not predictable,” he told AFP.
Dairyu was offering a starting salary of 813 yen an hour ($7.63), around the government’s recommended minimum wage, along with accommodation and three weeks of holiday.
As prospective employees lined up, Osaka admitted to some apprehension about how his staff would react to working with asylum seekers from African nations.
“I don’t mind, but my employees have never seen a black person.”
He said his foreign and Japanese workers would be paid the same wage, but activists say asylum seekers regularly face wage discrimination in Japan.
At an office in Tokyo, a group of asylum seekers clutching resumes listened to three Japanese companies describe their openings-rare opportunities in the country’s often impenetrable job market.
Japan accepts only a handful of refugees each year and they face hurdles to employment that can seem almost insurmountable, including language requirements, cultural barriers and discrimination.
But a handful of companies, driven partly by labour shortages, are now hiring refugees.
Among them is Dairyu, a styrofoam manufacturer whose CEO Kenichi Osaka was hoping to find two new employees at a job fair held Monday by the Japan Association for Refugees, an NGO.
“We need your work, and your novel ideas that Japanese people don’t come up with,” he told the asylum seekers in English.
With its rapidly ageing society, Japan has an unemployment rate of just 2.4 percent, the lowest in 25 years.
“We want to hire refugees because there are not enough workers in Japan,” said Osaka, whose 200 employees include around 20 foreigners.
“And Japanese are so strict with rules… we are looking for ideas that are unexpected and not predictable,” he told AFP.
Dairyu was offering a starting salary of 813 yen an hour ($7.63), around the government’s recommended minimum wage, along with accommodation and three weeks of holiday.
As prospective employees lined up, Osaka admitted to some apprehension about how his staff would react to working with asylum seekers from African nations.
“I don’t mind, but my employees have never seen a black person.”
He said his foreign and Japanese workers would be paid the same wage, but activists say asylum seekers regularly face wage discrimination in Japan.
