New regulations on training included in Japan’s amended immigration law have made it easier for Vietnamese trainees to work in the country.

At a seminar in Hanoi on October 6, Shotaro Tochigi, President of the Japanese International Training Cooperation Organisation (JITCO), said that the newly issued law has shortened the required training duration from one year to 1-2 months. The law also allows trainees to immediately sign labour contracts with Japanese enterprises instead of after one year of training.

Under the law, trainees will be able to emigrate and work under Japan’s labour laws after finishing their training courses and will have the same rights and responsibilities as domestic workers.

The law also includes tougher regulations and more responsibilities for foreign recruiting agencies and Japanese enterprises that employ foreign trainees, said Tochigi.

The JITCO president added that more than 5,000 Vietnamese trainees began working in Japan last year and six of them won prizes at the Japanese language contest for foreign trainees.

He also said that he wants to enroll more Vietnamese trainees in the future and the JITCO will do its utmost to facilitate this.

Deputy Head of the Overseas Labour Management Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs expressed his wish that the changes in Japan’s policy on receiving foreign trainees will help to increase the number of Vietnamese trainees going to Japan.

According to the department’s figures, at present, more than 80 Vietnamese enterprises are allowed to send their trainees to Japan. Vietnam has sent 30,000 trainees to the country over the past 17 years and 4,700 people travelled to Japan for training in the first nine months of this year.

However, due to the impacts of the global economic crisis, 500 Vietnamese workers had to return home before their contracts expired./.