The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shimbun
Foreign workers laid off amid pandemic face double blow
The economic slowdown caused by the novel coronavirus crisis is hitting young, foreign laborers in Japan, as many of them live in dormitories belonging to the companies that employ them, and it is not unusual for them to lose their accommodation if they are laid off.
“I was surprised to be told I had to move out in a month,” said a 30-yearold Peruvian woman.
She was notified of her dismissal at the end of June while she was in charge of dealing with foreign visitors at a resort in Kanagawa Prefecture. She said she had been told that “the demand for inbound travel has declined sharply due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
She and her roommate, a 31-year-old woman from India, rushed to get help from the Kanagawa Housing Support Center for Foreign Residents, a nonprofit organization in Yokohama that has long provided housing assistance for foreigners. She came into contact with the center via a local social welfare council, which she happened to find on Facebook.
On July 26 — five days before the deadline for moving out — she was introduced to Kawasaki Chuo Planner, a real estate agency in Kawasaki that cooperates with the NPO.
The two women are both seeking new employment through a public job placement office while living in a shared house in Kawasaki. However, many of the job offers require proficiency in Japanese.
Their rent is ¥38,000 per person, and the two rely on unemployment allowances and a small amount of savings as they face an uncertain future.
Pae Ann, executive director of the NPO that is supporting the two wom
en, said: “As you can see by looking at convenience stores and construction sites, foreign workers are indispensable for the Japanese economy. Despite that, the environment surrounding foreigners after arriving here remains harsh, including in housing.”
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, foreign workers in Japan totaled about 1.659 million in 2019, many of them in their 20s and 30s. The number has been increasing sharply due to the government’s measures to expand the acceptance of foreign workers. But it has been reported that there are problems related to housing.
According to survey results released by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry in June last year, 102 — or about 40% — of 274 foreign workers with whom interviews were conducted about difficulties they had
living in Japan answered “securing housing.”
The central and local governments have urged real estate agencies and other organizations involved in handling rental housing not to discriminate against foreigners.
But Tomonori Kimura, a board director of Kawasaki Chuo Planner, said, “Many real estate agents and landlords refuse to accept a prospective tenant as soon as they hear over the phone that they are a foreigner.”
Pae said that “difficulties foreigners have due to language barriers and unfamiliar rules, such as how to take out household garbage, can lead to discrimination.” Explaining that it is indispensable “to make efforts to remove anxiety on the leaser’s side,” she said her organization has been focusing on education, including compiling multilingual manuals on renting for foreigners.
The Zentouitsu Workers Union in Tokyo, which receives more than 100 inquiries annually from economic migrants, has received many consultation requests from people who are stuck because the restaurants they worked at are shuttered amid the prolonged pandemic.
Shiro Sasaki, secretary general of the union, said, “The government should focus on supporting the livelihood of foreign workers, including in housing, after accepting them into Japan, rather than merely paying attention to expanding the number.”
Based on the revised housing safety net law put into force in October 2017, the government has called for increasing the number of rental units that will not refuse people who require assistance to secure housing, including foreigners, disabled persons and elderly people living alone. The government has set a goal of boosting the registered number of such housing units to 175,000 by the end of the current fiscal year.
For registration, certain requirements need to be met in terms of floor area, equipment and structural aspects. To cover repair expenses, there is a subsidy system under which up to ¥2 million per housing unit will be provided by the central and local governments. For landlords who reduce rents, there is a system to subsidize the amount of reduction (up to ¥40,000 a month).
According to the Housing Development Division of the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, initially, the small number of registered housing units was a problem, but measures such as the abolition of registration fees and simplifying of procedures proved successful. As of August this year, registered housing units totaled about 68,200 and the number of units being screened amounted to about 96,600.