Deal brings more opportunities to VN labourers to work in Japan

Vietnam and Japan sign a deal on cooperation in sending workers to Japan to work in the field of accommodation and hotel services (Photo: VietnamPlus)

Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamese labourers will have more opportunities to go to work in Japan in the field of accommodation and hotel services.

An agreement to allow Vietnamese workers granted Japan’s vocational certificates to work in Japan in the hotel and accommodation services sector was signed between representatives from the Department of Overseas Labour Management under the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) and the Japan Ryokan and Hotel Association at a ceremony in Hanoi on October 10.

Under the deal, the two sides will enhance cooperation in sending and receiving Vietnamese labourers working in hotel and accommodation services in Japan. Vietnamese workers will be allowed to work in Japan for five years with a salary based on Japanese regulations.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Le Tan Dung said the agreement not only creates job opportunities for  Vietnamese skillful labourers working in hotel and accommodation services, but also connects the domestic labour market with the international one. 

It will also promote collaboration in labour, vocational training and technology transfer between Vietnam and Japan, he said.

He added that the agreement will help Japan address the shortage of human resources in a number of important sectors, and be a motivation to further enhance exchanges and cooperation between the two nations.

Previously on July 1, the MoLISA and the Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Health, Labour and Welfare, and the National Police Agency of Japan, signed a memorandum of cooperation (MoC) on sending specific skilled workers of Vietnam to work in Japan.

Under the MoC, Vietnamese skillful workers will have more opportunities to work for 14 different sectors in Japan, including accommodation services, auto maintenance and repair industry, electricity, electronic information, restaurants, construction, shipbuilding, agriculture, and ground aviation services.

Japan will only receive Vietnamese workers who complete all required procedures in accordance with Vietnam’s laws and they must be verified.

Verified workers are those sent to work overseas by companies that the ministry granted licences to send “specified skills” workers.

Besides high-skilled workers living in Vietnam, two other groups of workers eligible for the programme are Vietnamese interns and overseas students who finished their courses in Japan.

Japan would provide Vietnamese workers with funds for travel, language lessons and skills tests while Vietnam would supervise to avoid disadvantages for its workers.

According to Nguyen Gia Liem, Deputy Director General of the Department of Overseas Labour Management, the implementation of the MoC is expected to help curb illegal brokers and violations relating to labour export.

Japan needs to hire 22,000 foreign employees for its hotel and accommodation service industry.

A report from the Department of Overseas Labour showed that last year alone, the total number of Vietnamese apprentices sent to Japan reached nearly 70,000, accounting for more than 50 percent of the number of workers admitted by Japan. 

At present, nearly 200,000 Vietnamese apprentices are working in Japan.

In April this year, Japan launched a new policy on specified skills visa, which is expected to make it easier for Vietnamese labourers to work in Japan.  

The policy introduces two new categories that allow foreign workers employed in 14 types of jobs including nursing care, restaurants and construction, to remain in the country for up to five years.

Under the new law, those in a category of “specified skilled workers” can stay for up to five years but cannot bring family members. Another category is for more skilled non-Japanese nationals and allows them to bring relatives as well and stay in the country for longer.

This is part of Japan’s efforts to ease the country’s tightest job market in decades. In the next five years, Japan expects to receive about 345,500 foreign blue-collar workers

Last year, Vietnam sent more than 68,000 workers to Japan as interns, which made Japan the largest recipient of Vietnamese workers./.