Comment by laurieg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by laurieg | Hacker News Reader

I thought it might be useful to add a comment mentioning what the changes are in layman's terms.

Prior to the recent change, everyone working in Japan was a "skilled" worker. There was no language requirement and essentially anyone with a degree was eligible. This didn't cover manual labour jobs etc.

But at the same time, many young people were out working in convenience stores, fast food restaurants etc. Turns out they were all on student visas. With a student visa and a work permission application (essentially a rubber stamp that is never not given) you can work up to 28 hours a week.

So the changes are trying to bring the visa system more in line with what people are actually doing. People without degrees can actually get proper working visas in Japan now.

> "Permanent residents are allowed to apply for Japanese citizenship after five years."

Technically you can apply for citizenship without permanent residence (green card equivalent) though I don't know what your chances would be.... Also you must give up all other citizenships.

> "Some foreigners will also marry Japanese nationals, and their children will thus be citizens as well. Since the new law prevents visa holders from bringing families with them to Japan, many of the new workers will likely be single people looking for spouses, making them more likely to marry locals."

This is true. In fact, by far the fastest route to permanent residence in Japan is marriage. You can get PR in 3 years if you are married to a Japanese national vs 10 years if you aren't.

Previously there were issues with the working conditions for people on the so-called "trainee" visa. One of these conditions (imposed by the workplace) included "No relationships". I hope the new visas don't come with similar stipulations.

The absolute fastest way to PR is through Highly Skilled Foreign Professional Type 1 visa. PR after a year. That's incredibly fast. Type 2 visa after 3 years IIRC. The difference between 1 and 2 is the number of points one scores.

The points calculation table can be found here: https://www.juridique.jp/visa/hsp.php

It seems that if you have a master's degree from top 300 universities, passed N2, aged under 30 and have high salary (10M yen+) you can easily get 100 points. Type 1 visa only requires 80 points and guarantees permanent residency in one year.

Note that "N2" is Level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, which is the 2nd highest level of 5 and entails multiple years of study.

You can pass N2 in one year of full time study (if you apply yourself). The multiple years tend to be when people are trying to pass it doing part time study.

True, though for reference that's only 10 of the points. Hitting 10M yen is 40 and a master's is 20.

10M yen+

For reference, believe that's ~ USD$91k, EUR€82k, GBP£72k.

It always seems strange to me how much deference is given to masters degrees for immigration purposes when in many industries they aren't worth getting, and can actually correlate negatively with someone's skill. And you get no points for a "mere" undergrad degree, even though in many fields such as CS that's more meaningful as it represents twice as much work. At my alma mater, the undergrad CS holders are much more capable than the graduate CS holders on average, simply because the undergrads know they don't need the grad degree and thus don't get one, whereas the grad students had a different undergrad degree and may have only gotten those two years' worth of exposure to CS. So the undergrads have twice the experience, which is substantial. This phenomenon is widespread in CS.

> This is true. In fact, by far the fastest route to permanent residence in Japan is marriage. You can get PR in 3 years if you are married to a Japanese national vs 10 years if you aren't.

More details on that. Getting a wedding visa the first time gives 1 year. At the second application one year later, one gets once again 1 year. At the third application one year later, you get 3 three. At this point, you could ask for permanent residency. So the first three years after the wedding are a hell of paperwork, but after that there is no need to go to the immigration office (入国管理局) which is close to Shinagawa in Tokyo.

> Getting a wedding visa the first time gives 1 year. At the second application one year later, one gets once again 1 year. At the third application one year later, you get 3 three

This is case-by-case. I went 1y-3y-5y. I've met people who got 3y on their first.

> but after that there is no need to go to the immigration office

You still need to renew your physical card every 7 years (new photo etc), but at least you no longer need to prepare all the paperwork.

Indeed preparing mine now for the 5 year and once that's done I'll be turning around and starting the permanent visa paperwork. Finally! Lol

Since some of the paperwork was the same, I applied for PR alongside my second renewal (the one that got me 5 years) to avoid multiple trips to city hall. The 5 year spouse visa renewal took a week to be approved, the PR took 3 months. So in the end I only had the 5 year visa for 3 months :p

Another interesting part of getting PR by marriage: you only have to live in Japan one year. You could get married in another country, live there 2 years minimum and then move to Japan and get PR after only one year of residency.

So getting married in another country (though notified and registered in Japan the same year), and moving (permanently) to Japan several years later will count? Have I understood this correctly? (yes I've got a personal interest in this)

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