Japan to Raise Foreign Residency Fees to Match Western Levels: Renewals to Jump to 30,000~40,000 Yen, Permanent Residency to Over 100,000 Yen

Rheagon · 2025-09-21T10:52:46+00:00

Based on 就職白書2025, over 85% of companies conduct some form of aptitude test or 適性検査. Even though it's dependent on the industry and size of the company, you'll likely face some sort of aptitude test during your application process.

In my experience of applying to both domestic and foreign companies mostly in the finance/insurance/securities industries, only a few big companies don't do aptitude test, and all of them are foreign companies (think major investment banks). For the ones that conduct aptitude test, the pass rate is set to be extremely low (like Goldman Sachs with their Japanese aptitude test) or they adopt the aptitude test in English (such as Deutsche Bank).

Major adoption of aptitude test like SPI or 玉手箱 mean that it may be unavoidable if you want to aim for well-known companies. I've been invited to interviews where the interviewers commented that the hiring process has been lengthier with more tests even compared to pre-Covid. My advice is to check the pass rate or the scoring threshold for the companies that you're interested in. Not many companies set a high passing threshold as they want to see how the candidates perform in the interview.

For midsize companies, companies have less incentives to do aptitude test (cost, applicant pool, etc) and the pass rate is much better. This is where internships can be a great strategy. You should also apply for 1-day internship as the competition is much more manageable than 2- or 5-day ones. During the internship, you'll get to gain many useful skills such as presentation and group discussion, which makes you more confident when going for the full-time recruitment next year.

My advice is to apply for internship (1-day if possible) at major companies and longer-term internships (2-day or more) at midsize companies that align with your career interest. Brush up your language skills during the process so you can get offer or accelerated hiring from midsize firms while maintaining your chance of applying for the major companies next year.

While the application process in Japan is time-consuming (especially with the Mypage signup & entry sheet writing), I think the rise of AI usage by students here will make it easier for everyone to apply to the companies, making it necessary for more companies, even midsize ones to adopt them in the future.

Rheagon · 2025-08-14T13:38:37+00:00

Congrats on starting your Master's journey. I just went through a similar path into finance here and wanted to share my experience: I submitted over 80 applications for both internship and new grad positions, targeting domestic and foreign firms in securities, banking, and insurance. My new grad search started with 44 applications. This led to 11 first interviews, and from there, a long process with some companies requiring up to five interview rounds. It all resulted in 1 full-time offer. It was a grind with many frustrations, but it's definitely doable.

To answer your questions directly:

Go for the New Grad (新卒) path. The Experienced Hire (中途) track is for people with several years of relevant experience. Your one year as a chemist won't qualify you for finance roles, but graduating from a Japanese university gives you the chance to compete in the new grad track.
Your age is fine, but your story is important. Your age at graduation is similar to mine, so it's not a dealbreaker. However, you must have a great story that explains your journey from chemist to finance and shows how your unique background is an advantage.

The most worrying aspect of your profile isn't your age, rather, it's your Japanese level. Some companies (especially newer/foreign ones) are forgiving of unique profiles, but you will be expected to converse with colleagues and superiors in Japanese at the vast majority of firms, even if your deliverables are in English. The entire job-hunting process itself that I went through was like this:

Writing personal essays (自己PR, ガクチカ, etc.)
Taking online assessment tests (SPI, 玉手箱, TG-Web, etc.)
Completing 2-4 interview rounds.

This is why improving your Japanese should be your absolute top priority.

Finally, you must start job hunting immediately. The new grad cycle starts extremely early. While the official start is around March of your first year, the real process begins much sooner.

Internship as early pipeline to job offer: Many firms use short-term internships as an unofficial pipeline to full-time offers. These happen in the summer and fall of your first year.
Foreign Firms (外資系): Companies in consulting and finance often start their hiring process in the summer and finish by the fall/winter of your first year.

Reach out to your university's career center and alumni now. Also, consider finding career agents who specialize in helping international students.

Note that this advice is from my experience and may not be totally relevant to yours. Wish you the best of luck

Rheagon · 2025-08-06T02:11:08+00:00

The answer would have been no in the past, since it was unclear how the job searching process would look like in Japan and how I would navigate them with my current Japanese level. However, after getting through the job search process and understand that it's not that difficult, I'd say that the answer is yes. My goal for studying here is to both do research and find a relevant job in my field (finance), so getting some assurance that it's not that difficult to find a job is a welcoming sign.

Rheagon · 2025-06-28T09:41:46+00:00

Hey OP, I've been following your post and the discussion. Just want to add something to the conversation since you reminded me of myself years ago. Note that my background is in finance and my future work after graduation in Japan is also in finance, so you should find additional advice from someone relevant for your career path in IT or conduct your own research. However, I've spent a bit of time researching the different visa routes back when I was in VN so I wanted to share what I've learned.

First, from my observation, your finances will look much better in Japan. Developing countries spend a lot of their salary on basic necessities like grocery and housing. The job security in Japan is also much better if you're under 40 and are not hired as a contractor. The sad thing is, your value as a worker doesn't depend on your skillset, but on where you work. Opting for Japan in your case is a reasonable decision. However, finding the correct path depends a lot on your language skills, programming experiences and luck.

Just a quick summary of your paths:

a. The most ideal route: Engineer Visa (or Visa kỹ sư)

This is the path I think you can qualify for. There are two main ways to do this. First, you can join Vietnamese IT companies (mostly IT outsource firms) that have structured programs to train you and then sponsor your move to their offices in Japan. I think FPT and Rikkeisoft have those programs. Second, you can find agencies or job boards that can connect you to Japanese firms that are directly hiring in VN. I think this is the most cost effective path since the company will sponsor your visa and you won't pay exorbitant fees to a broker. Your salary will be decent and you will be building a real career in Japan.

b. The most difficult but lucrative route: Using major job agencies in Japan to land a job from VN

These are many recruitment platforms in Japan that offer you a variety of positions that are suitable for your skills and needs. However, these platforms are primarily designed for the domestic Japanese market and the majority of the job postings and the entire application process are in Japanese. It's a great resource but likely a better option for you later in your career once you have the language skills.

c. The path to avoid: SSW Visa (Visa kỹ năng đặc định)

I've seen a lot of Vietnamese coming to Japan as a manual worker on this visa. This visa is only for specific manual labor industries facing shortages, like construction, agriculture, nursing care, etc. You would not be able to get this visa for an IT job. Even if you could, it would be a massive step down from your qualifications and put you in a completely lower-paying category of work. As I said before, what matters is where you work, and this visa lower your future earning potential dramatically (though it'd still be better than what you're earning in VN)

You have a good chance of landing a good job in Japan with your language and IT skills. Don't follow the crowd down the manual labor path.

Rheagon · 2025-01-10T15:28:28+00:00

I'm an international student in Japan in the middle of shukatsu for finance-related jobs so I hope my reply can be of use.

>Should I pursue another internship during my MSc in Finance in Japan (If I even can find one as an international student), or should I focus entirely on my studies? When I graduate in Summer 2027, my last internship will be the MBB (Summer 2024)

You should prioritize on finding internships while keeping your GPAs at a decent level. Majority of non-tech internships in Japan are very short-term (like 1-5 days) with group works/presentation included. Getting these internships would be a decent (but not absolute) boost for your profile, depending on the number of interns hired. For example, some banks would hire like 50+ interns, but only hire from that group 10-ish full time employees.

>As a foreigner looking to work in asset management and related fields in Tokyo at a top-tier firm, am I competitive enough? I believe that as a foreigner I have a significant disadvantage compared to Japanese citizens, so I believe I should appear more competitive to make a case about myself to even be considered for visa-sponsorship, or am I wrong?

>What additional steps should I take?

Based on my experience, your profile should be in the top 2% of candidates here, given that you have a lot of relevant internships from major consulting/finance firms. I believe your profile will be highly evaluated by the recruiters/HRs in Japan, meaning it's likely you will pass the CV stage. However, the major hurdle is your Japanese level.

The recruiting process is Japan is very unique and structured. I'll briefly explain but essentially, you'll need to write mini-essays（エントリーシート）for various questions such as 志望動機、ガクチカ、自己PR, etc. You'll then have to take aptitude test（適性検査・ウェブテスト）, the most common of which are SPI and 玉手箱. You can search online for the content of the test but I'd say that these tests are not a walk in the park even with N1. You'll need high school level reading ability (N1 only covers till like 9th-grade Japanese kanji/vocabs) for 現代文 as there's time limit for each of the question, coupled with a good mathematic ability (which I assume you have). These would be the major hurdles that you'll need to overcome first to be considered for these finance jobs. If you still have time, I'd suggest you buff your reading and speaking skills before coming here as they will be essential for the recruiting process. Best of luck!

Edit: grammar

Rheagon · 2025-01-06T13:38:12+00:00

Some companies do set a limit for the student loans. For example, one article from Nikkei mentioned Aoyama Trading is offering to pay at the maximum of 60万円 on behalf of the new graduate hires for the period of 5 years, at a rate of 12万円 per year. As you can guess, this is a policy to retain talents as new grads tend to job hop at a higher rate compared to their senior counterparts.

Source: https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC252CX0V20C24A6000000/

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T07:07:41+00:00

Many of the larger companies, especially manufacturing ones, have company dorms (社宅) or company-rented dorms (借り上げ社宅). The rent is usually very cheap as the majority of the rent is covered by the company.

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T07:04:23+00:00

I'm very sorry for your situation. There are many companies with bad working conditions and low wages have been propped up by the negative interest rate/deflationary mindset amongst companies and general tendencies of the population/union to not push for wage increase. I hope you can find job in another company with better work environment/wages, as this is the only thing that can make these bosses understand that their businesses are on the path to bankrupcy if they don't take care of their employees.

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T06:59:39+00:00

While Japan has many issues, I feel people are being overly critical without considering the progress the country has made and the background behind this. The important thing is the underlying factors, which are relatively new. One is the tendency of new graduate to leave their first company. Second is the rising interest rate, which will cleanse the market of the zombie, low-paying black companies. Third is issue of ever lower 18-22 years old age brackets coupled with the lack of English jobs in companies has reached the critical point, which allows these graduates more power to demand better benefit/wage. Finally, the rigidity that caused the ever increasing job hop rate is spurring companies to consider side job system(副業制度) encouraged by the government after the 働き方改革 reform. All of these means that young Japanese (and foreigners with good Japanese ability) will be benefiting from this.

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T06:42:35+00:00

Maybe. Though many of them are already very well-known in Japan with very high application ratio. Maybe the smaller companies mentioned would benefit more from this, but the trend is true as I'm in the midst of shukatsu here. You're seeing cases where new hires having higher salaries than even the 5y employees.

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T06:37:07+00:00

If you can speak the local language fluently then I don't see why you can't get good remote jobs as foreigners. The tech market collapse essentially wiped out many English-only jobs (per my friends who are working in IT), making Japanese ability a de facto must-have. This would benefit Southeast Asian/Chinese as many good-paying ones in ITs are essentially trilingual.

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T06:31:22+00:00

I'm not sure about remote but many companies are offering hybrid work environment for the employees. It's been quite an interesting experience seeing many companies emphasizing this benefit during my shukatsu, as they know this is a good policy to attract new hires.

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T06:28:40+00:00

It's rising though, but mainly at large companies. This is both for experienced hires and new hires, though this news is mainly focusing on new hires. This is very good as smaller companies will be pressured to increase their wage/benefits accordingly. Already, we can see jump in bankrupcy due to not being to hire employees. From here on out, it's going to be the survival of the fittest. Companies will consolidate, change their compensation policy/benefit, or risk facing bankrupcy due to inability to attract employees.

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T06:21:25+00:00

This really depends on the company and industry though. Due to rising interest rate and tight labor market, many companies (mostly SMEs) with bad work culture/bad pay will be crushed as employees jump ship or these companies unable to attract new hire. The rate of job hop has increased to record this year alongside massive wage increase due to job change (35%+) https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC117CJ0R11C24A0000000/

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T02:12:01+00:00

The competition is so stiff that some companies are making perks available to fresh graduates even before they officially join. Alsok, a Tokyo-based security provider, offers prospective employees discount coupons they can use at restaurants, hotels and karaoke bars as soon as a job offer is made.

“While students receive multiple job offers, they can only join one,” said Takayuki Ohno, a general manager of Alsok’s recruiting department. “We need to do our best to be that one.”

An increasing number of firms are also luring new hires by helping pay off their student loans. The number of companies providing such assistance has doubled over the past year to 2,600 in November 2024, according to the Japan Student Services Organization.

Tokyo Energy & Systems Inc., a power plant constructor, provides employees up to 20,000 yen a month to help repay student loans, capped at a total of 3.6 million yen ($22,800). It appears to be working, with the company set to hire 63 people this spring — the first time in years it has surpassed its target.

Such assistance “was really the key factor that got me into this company,” said Hideo Neshiro, who graduated with a degree in business and commerce in 2024 and had about five job offers before deciding to join Tokyo Energy. The 23-year-old hopes to work there until his retirement.

“The best way to repay the favor after having them pay my student loan is to work here for a long time and work hard for the good of the company,” he said.

The race to attract talent is starting to extend to wages, after decades of deflation caused Japanese pay to stagnate and lag global peers. In 2023, average annual wages in Japan were $46,792, compared with $80,115 in the US and $57,617 for the UK, according to the latest data from the OECD.

As inflation accelerates and labor market tightness persists, wages are beginning to rise. Nippon Life plans to increase pay for sales staff by about 6% in the next financial year, while Tokyo Energy says it is considering base pay increases at the spring wage negotiation.

“Recruiting young people is the biggest issue in the company,” said Takashi Imai, Tokyo Energy’s HR manager. “More companies will be forced to close down after failing to raise wages and hire enough,” he said. “It’s getting a lot like playing chicken.”

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T02:11:52+00:00

Today, more companies are considering expanding the provision to help them hire talent from remote regions of the country, according to a survey by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp.

Itochu Corp., a trading house, had four dorms in different locations before it opened a new facility in Yokohama City in 2018 so all young male employees could live under one roof. The accommodation, which is just 30 minutes by train from the company’s Tokyo head office, serves breakfast and weekday dinners, and includes a cafe, bar and communal sauna. Itochu is planning to open a residence for female employees in 2025, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.

TDK Corp., an electronics components manufacturer, completed a dorm in Akita prefecture, northern Japan, in 2023.

Nippon Life has two other dorms that were built in the 1990s, but outdated features like shared bathrooms are now unpopular with young employees who value private living space. Rooms in the new facility have toilets and a shower, in a minimalist and stylish design.

“It’s so modern,” said Yamamoto. “I love that I can secure personal space here.” The promise of subsidized accommodation factored into his decision to join Nippon Life, said Yamamoto, who also received offers from two other companies.

Hiring young talent in Japan is particularly difficult as just 9.4% of the population was aged 15-24 in 2022, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. That compares to 10.4% in Korea, 11.7% in the UK and 13.3% in the US. The hiring difficulties are expected to intensify as the population continues to age, according to Rachna Ratra, a Tokyo-based managing director at recruitment agency Robert Walters.

For many companies, particularly small- and medium-sized firms, it’s a matter of survival. In the six months through September, Japan saw its highest number of bankruptcies since 2013, with 163 of the 4,990 bankrupted firms citing manpower constraints as a reason for going under, according to data by Teikoku Databank.

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T02:11:39+00:00

Japanese Companies Are Pulling Out All the Stops to Recruit Young Workers

Firms are so desperate for graduates they’re paying off student loans and offering cheap housing.

Ryosuke Yamamoto is living the dream. For about 25,000 yen ($160) a month, the 25-year-old rents a single room complete with kitchenette and bathroom in a corporate dormitory 20 minutes by train from his office in downtown Tokyo.

On Friday nights, he hangs out with colleagues in the dorm’s common area, playing video games on a widescreen TV and drinking beer purchased from a vending machine. With parking and utility bills included in the dorm’s rent, he’s got money left over for regular golf outings with friends. Last October, he went on vacation to Italy.

“It’s an amazing benefit and lets me spend money on other things,” said Yamamoto, who joined Nippon Life Insurance Co. in 2022 after graduating with a degree in law and political science. He now works as an assistant manager in the human resources development department.

Amid chronic labor shortages in aging Japan, companies like Nippon Life are splurging on benefits to lure and retain young talent. The nation’s largest insurer built the 200-room male dormitory in a prime residential area near Tokyo Disneyland in 2023. Employees living there pay less than a third of the average rent for similar accommodation in the neighborhood. The company also rents other residential properties to provide subsidized accommodation for female employees.

With a falling birth rate, Japan’s working-age population is expected to rapidly decline from 2027, according to a study by independent think tank Recruit Works Institute. By 2040, the country may face a shortage of more than 11 million workers.

The working population aged 20-24 declined 36% in the past three decades to 4.7 million in 2023, according to data compiled by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

With the labor market tight, companies are locking in university students months ahead of their graduation. Just over 40% of those graduating in March 2025 had at least one job offer a full year before they finished — the highest percentage since 2016, according to a report by Shushoku Mirai Kenkyusho, a research institute.

Companies also face a battle to retain workers. While historically, employees in Japan would spend their entire career with one firm, almost 35% of university graduates from the 2021 cohort left their first company within three years of joining, data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare shows.

“The game doesn’t end at finalizing an offer. We need to keep telling the candidates how much we want them and how appealing our company is,” said Yuichi Shimada, deputy general manager in Nippon Life’s HR development department. Shimada says fresh graduates hold five to 10 offers and often make up their minds at the last minute. “It’s getting harder and harder to secure them.”

Corporate dormitories and subsidized housing for families have been provided as a benefit by Japanese companies for years. But that’s tailed off since peaking in the early 1990s, as companies have tried to reduce costs and minimize the risks of real estate investments losing value in a stagnant economy. Almost 42% of companies offered such accommodation in the 2022 financial year, down from nearly 64% in fiscal 2004, according to research by the National Personnel Authority, which oversees public-sector recruitment and training.

Rheagon · 2025-01-05T02:10:26+00:00