Internationalisation vs Japanisation

Japan has too many vacant jobs. In 2017, Japan’s low birth rate and relative economic recovery left 1.43 job vacancies for every applicant in all sectors and skill levels. In Tokyo, Japan’s white-collar capital, there are two jobs for every one applicant.

To avert an employment crisis, the Japan Revitalization Strategy 2014 will both recruit 300,000 international students and employ 50% of those international graduates by 2020.

To retain these graduates, the Japanese government offers international students subsidised internships in Japanese companies, employment services and courses in Japanese language and business etiquette with the hope of increasing the percentage of internationals who remain in the workforce from 30% to 50% by 2020.

Vietnam is Japan’s second-largest source of foreign workers. In 2016, Vietnamese made up 16% of Japan’s foreign labour force, both skilled and unskilled. According to a 2017 DISCO survey, nearly 60% of Japanese corporations are eager to hire a skilled international. However, out of approximately 20,000 Vietnamese graduates, only 1,153 transferred from a student visa to a skilled work permit in 2015.

Vietnamese students should be aware that, despite high demand, Japanese universities struggle to prepare most internationals with the cultural competencies needed for employment in Japan’s unique corporate culture.

Vietnam and Japan experience symbiotic economic growth. Japanese Official Development Assistance and Foreign Direct Investment are Vietnam’s first and second-largest sources of investment respectively. Japan is Vietnam’s third-largest trading partner after China and the United States. Japan invests heavily in Vietnamese higher education through scholarships, joint-degree programmes, development projects and the Vietnam Japan University.

These Japanese initiatives both improve the quality of education in Vietnam and highlight the merits of Japan’s education system to prospective international students in Vietnam. Japanese trade, aid and investment initiatives are eager to hire skilled Vietnamese graduates, both in Japan and in Vietnam, to bridge the gaps of language and culture between the ever-closer partners.

In 2016, a Japanese IT professional organisation set a collective goal to recruit 10,000 Japanese-speaking IT specialists from Vietnam and India. Given this momentum, in 2016 alone, Vietnamese students studying in Japan surged by 15% to more than 54,000, with 25,228 enrolled in Japanese language schools and 28,579 studying at Japanese universities.

Although many Vietnamese graduates intend to work in Japan, Japan’s corporate recruitment culture poses notoriously strict procedures and formalities few Vietnamese graduates have the language or cultural capacity to navigate. Japanese expectations of lifetime employment don’t suit the mobile lifestyle of modern graduates, nor do Japan’s strict work permit and permanent residency laws.

Most Japanese companies expect that their new hires, both Japanese and international, complete a standard initial training period. The high cost and scarce intercultural capacity to train Vietnamese graduates leaves most small and mid-sized companies unable to hire an international.

To illustrate the employment barrier, in 2014 while 69.5% of international graduates intended to find work in Japan, only 34.5% actually gained employment. The following year, as mentioned, only 1,153 of 20,000 Vietnamese internationals transferred directly from a student visa to a skilled work permit.

Given the ever-increasing supply of and demand for international hires, the Japan Revitalization Strategy funds university initiatives to shift internationals from education to skilled employment.

Japanisation initiatives

In pursuit of the Japan Revitalization Strategy, the Japanese government agreed to fund universities’ international student support offices to prepare internationals for Japanese employment or Japanisation.

Funding for Japanisation picked up steam in 2008 with the target to recruit 300,000 international students. By 2014, when the target for hiring 50% of internationals appeared in the Japan Revitalization Strategy, a component of Abenomics Reforms, supporting internationals became both an educational and employment priority.

Japanisation initiatives include funding advanced Japanese language studies, providing business etiquette classes, funding internationals’ month-long internships within Japanese companies and hosting international recruitment seminars.

How each university supports their international students varies: Nagoya University hosts job hunting seminars, the Fukuoka International Student Support Center runs a multilingual advice video series for international job seekers, the University of Tokyo distributes international job vacancies, proofs cover letters and stages mock interviews and Kobe University brokers internationals’ small loans, off-campus housing contracts and offers advanced Japanese lessons.

It is difficult to prove direct causation between better funded Japanisation programmes and increased employment of internationals. However, between 2005 and 2015 the number of internationals who found jobs in Japan immediately after graduation nearly tripled from 5,878 to 15,657.

Getting a job immediately after graduation is likely a signal that the internationals succeeded in the Japanese recruitment process. The majority of these new hires were recruited in urban centres to bridge cultural gaps through language services, marketing, education and engineering.

Although tripling the post-graduation hiring rate is an improvement, during that same 2005-15 period the population of internationals in Japan more than doubled to over 250,000. Proportionally, the recent graduate employment gap remains largely unchanged over the past decade.

Tackling the issue from both sides

One reason why it is difficult to link these Japanisation programmes and internationals’ employment is that, over the same time period, Japanese universities and businesses made progress towards internationalisation. Internationalisation brings domestic stakeholders’ capacities and expectations closer to global norms while Japanisation brings internationals’ capacities closer to Japanese norms.

With US$77 million committed to internationalisation initiatives under Japan’s Top Global University Project, Japan’s government is tackling the issue from both sides.

Japan’s return on investment for domestic internationalisation initiatives such as English language training and study abroad remains low. Until Japan’s inward-looking corporate culture values intercultural awareness, domestic students will not see the value in foreign language skills or intercultural competencies. I imagine that Japanisation is a stopgap to make up for slow progress in internationalising Japan’s corporate hiring culture.

I caution Japan that greater investment in Japanisation could shift the onus for reform onto internationals and diminish the urgency for corporate practices to internationalise. The eventual internationalisation of Japanese corporate culture has the greatest potential to revitalise Japan’s sluggish economy.

Japanisation programmes signal Japanese universities’ new responsibility to prepare internationals for Japanese employment. Traditionally, Japanese university is a time for self-exploration – not extensive job training. Japanese companies are responsible for training their new hires after graduation. Japanese companies hire recent graduates based on their potential, rather than their work readiness.

The traineeship that Japanese employees undergo is foreign to internationals who are accustomed to being work ready upon graduation. Japanisation programmes benefit small and mid-sized companies that lack the capacity to train internationals themselves. The Japanese university’s evolving role in society now includes providing society with employable culturally competent international graduates.

What Vietnamese students should do

Vietnamese students grow up in a diploma-driven educational environment, which ascribes prestige to students based on the rank of their graduating university and their rank within their graduating class.

Vietnamese students and parents tend to believe that a prestigious diploma itself will get someone a good job. Vietnamese job seekers in Japan cannot rely on this outdated mindset. Rather Vietnamese students must commit to building their own Japanese cultural capacities. This means more time spent learning Japanese and having meaningful intercultural experiences.

Furthermore, Vietnamese students should carefully examine how active their prospective university’s international student support office is and gravitate to a supportive environment over a prestigious environment.

Students and parents tend to focus on their grades as measures of their coming success. However, a stronger indicator of success would be fluency in Japanese, competency in Japanese hiring practices and cultural awareness.

I recommend that Vietnamese students and families relax their emphasis on university grades and focus on learning Japanese, networking and cultivating work-ready cultural skills – as at this point Japanese universities are not adequately preparing most internationals for success in Japanese society.

Deren Temel is a higher education development consultant based in Vietnam. He writes in a personal capacity.