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Comment by weiming | Hacker News Reader

The article doesn't mention, but Japan also took steps to make immigration easier for skilled workers with the Highly-Skilled Foreign Professional visa [1] based on this point system [2]. Can even qualify for permanent residency in as little as one year if you score 80+ points.

[1] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/

[2] http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_leaflet...

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Pulling out the hacker part:

  40 points for > 10 million yen salary ($91,000)

  10 for a bachelors
  20 for a masters
  30 for a phd

  20 for 10 years experience
  15 for 7 years experience
  10 for 5 years experience
  5 for 3 years experience

  age
  15 for <29
  10 for 30-34
  5 for 35-39

  15 for a patent
  15 for 3 academic papers
  15 for 3 academic grant

And bonuses for language proficiency, working for small-medium companies that spend on R and D (startups?) and holding a foreign qualification.

With the right salary ($91K/year):

24 year old, with bachelors, and 3 years work experience? you are in.

40 year old, with bachelors, and 10 years work experience? you are in.

Remarkably open. Far more so than the US.

Wow! That throws much of the western world out of the water. I'm wondering if there is any requirement for continued residency. For example, in US if you don't live 6 months out of a year in US then you risk your green card getting cancelled.

Can be away for up to a year at a time, or up to five years if you apply for a re-entry permit. Unlike the US, there is no requirement to maintain continuous residency.

However, just like US, having permanent residency subjects you to worldwide taxation which may not be ideal for everyone.

And it appears that permanent residency for tax purposes and the VISA, are unrelated. So if you’re in Japan for more than 5 years you maybe taxed on your world wide income?

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2016/10/30/how-tos/lo...

If anyone has more information, I’d be interesting it reading it as it’s pretty unclear to me.

> So if you’re in Japan for more than 5 years you maybe taxed on your world wide income?

Correct [1], even if you're on a regular work visa. "Permanent resident for tax purposes" != "Permanent resident as in visa"

Interestingly, as of 2017, you're taxed on worldwide investment income like selling stock (with some exceptions [2]) even if you're there for < 5 years.

[1] http://taxsummaries.pwc.com/uk/taxsummaries/wwts.nsf/ID/Japa...

[2] https://www.pwc.com/jp/en/taxnews-international-assignment/a...

Most developed countries run a similar points system for immigration.

The USA is unique in the fact that they don't. Trump has made noises that he wants to change the system to a points system.

Looking at Glassdoor, 10 million yen is an exceptional salary, the normal spread is more like 5-7.

The problem is that the points requirements are too high for the type of young entrepreneurial people Japan wants to attract, and Japan itself is not attractive for the high rollers of the professional or scientific world that would qualify. In the 5+ years since it was rolled out, the number of successful applicants is less than 5000, most of whom were apparently Chinese nationals already in Japan.

https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00304/

Am I reading this wrong? It looks like you get 40 points for having a salary of 10M yen. That's not very high for tech jobs. That plus having a few years of experience, a bachelors, and being under 40 gets you past the 70 point bar at least.

A tech job making 10M yen in Japan is a very different experience than a tech job in the US making 100k+ a year.

I don't know too much about employment in Japan, would love it if you could elaborate on this.

The average programmer salary in Japan is half that of the US, approximately. Their economy is dramatically smaller per capita than the US (the US GDP per capita is 58% higher), and then on top of that engineers are not paid nearly so well as in the US within that economic potential.

It's a lot more rare to make $100,000+ per year as a programmer in Japan. Normal circumstances generally will not get you there.

You need to make 10M JPY in your job before coming to Japan.

According to the forms, it's the salary from the "principal accepting organization" that matters (i.e. the Japanese salary).

This refers to salary you earn/will earn in Japan. If one has the funds and the desire, can even start own company/branch office in Japan and pay oneself salary.

The caveat is that most software salaries would pay closer to 5M yen than to 10M.

Too late to edit my original post now, but in case it's not clear, one certainly can work in Japan even with a smaller salary. It's just that if you want perks like ability to bring family/apply for permanent residency early/etc., the HSFP visa is handy.

Which clause are you referring to ? When I applied to the visa last year, I had to justify my salary, at that time in the UK, with proof. Checking my application, I got 40 points for having > 10M JPY in the 35-40 year range.

Note 2 on this:

http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/171110_point_c...

"Checking my application, I got 40 points for having > 10M JPY in the 35-40 year range."

Were you paid that by a Japanese company? The clarification on Note 2 seems to imply that they'll consider any income from a Japanese company (i.e. in the case of transfers).

The company I was working for before had no link whatsoever with Japan. But you're right that the wording there is unambiguously referring to the sponsoring company's salary.

I applied a bit more than one year ago, I wonder if they changed that section then.

I mean, to the extent that the English translation of a Japanese bureaucratic document is unambiguous about anything...

It wouldn't surprise me much to find out that the rules are different from what's written.

One reason the number of applicants is so low is that the regular visas are also just fine (and still have some benefits over the highly-skilled ones), so a lot of people don't get them even if they qualify.

Hmm interesting.but it looks like they are only interested in young doctors and researchers. Not in professional workers, at least when you use the Excel, or is there an other way to calculate the points?

You can switch between sheets/tabs in the Excel doc. There are three eligible categories: researchers, specialized/technical (like software), and business managers.

Oh thanks, opened it on mobile. Will check out again.

Around 2 years ago, I was reached by a Rakuten recruiter. I think, I should've given more consideration to the proposal than a straight refusal.

Rakuten is not the best you can aim for in Japan, at least if you are willing to live in Tokyo. It is a decent first experience, especially if you are young, but it is still very stiff compared to international companies, and salaries are low. I would advise looking at startups (disclaimer: I work and hire at one) or international companies like Google, Indeed, Nvidia, Intel, Pivotal, etc. Indeed at least is actively hiring for foreign talent in Tokyo.

I know this is going to be anecdotal, but curious about your experiences with local tech talent. Do you come across enough people familiar with data structures/algorithms, or, instead, more people who have taken proficiency exams like IT Passport?

I guess by local talent you mean Japanese ? It is hard to attract them as a small company, even today. I have some anecdotal feedback on why this would be the case, but I don't know how prevalent it is.

Otherwise, there are plenty of foreign engineers who are already in Japan, and that you can attract through various perks. I would say the issues are not unlike what I have seen in Europe: resume are generally not discriminant, except at the extremes, and you need to spend a lot of time per candidate. I actually do not care so much about data structure/ algos: of course I expect people to know the basics such as walking a tree, or why you want to use a hashmap instead of a list, but we are generally looking for the typical T-shape, and ensure people, especially more senior ones, are deep in one area.

Maybe the most challenging issue is that you see more diversity in terms of culture than Europe (and even the US dare I say), so you need to make sure you have a decent process in place to judge people as objectively as possible.

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