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Comment by hankbond | Hacker News Reader

> applicants for permanent residency will need to show that their annual household income exceeds the Japanese average

Can someone explain why they think this is a detrimental practice for native Japanese?

From the article “Japan needs foreign workers because of labour shortages. But if the conditions for long-term settlement become substantially more difficult, this could potentially reduce Japan’s attractiveness to foreign workers who are considering Japan as a place to build their long-term lives,”

Specifically, Japan needs workers in human services to physically care for the very large elderly population. They need them so badly that they are in the process of implementing easier work visas for them. But do you think those jobs pay more than the national average?

No, but that's the point. They don't want long-term residents, they want short-term labor. This has been the goal for a long time, and if you move to Japan expecting anything else you'll be disappointed.

>They don't want long-term residents, they want short-term labor.

So just like Singapore and wealthy Arab Gulf states.

"Labour shortage" is just the business's perspective on "plenty of jobs!"

If there truly is a shortage of outstanding jobs, then they can compete and raise salaries and the least significant roles ultimately won't get filled, which is optimal.

Sure, it’s optimal when it’s not your grandma lying in their own shit for 12 hours.

It's my understanding that end-of-life care service workers are paid relatively little (at least in the US). It does seem like this policy would exacerbate those labor shortages.

Think of the US - the reduction of low wage immigrants has been a large factor in our economy lately. Food prices have gone up, and in the long term there's fewer young families getting added to the social security system.

While it's cute to think that suddenly these jobs are going to Americans, but these are mostly undesirable jobs that pay less than typical jobs. To the extent that they even get filled by native workers, it drives real wages down and not up.

Meanwhile, only allowing immigrants from the top of the income bracket crowds out the top side of the job market.

It's a lowering tide that lowers all boats.

This is very one-sided. There are plenty of low income and working class people who have suddenly found more work than they have had in years due to reductions in immigration.

What's the empirical evidence that proves this? If the economy gets worse as a result of lack of immigration, its going to reduce opportunities for low income and working class people.

Again, totally one-sided.

You’re making an assumption that immigration lead leads to a better economy, ignoring the possibility of more competition for jobs, lead leading to less power and wages for workers.

There are studies that show that immigration leads to higher job and wage growth: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/explainer/immigrants-us-econ... (look at the bottom for sources). It's not an assumption.

You're focusing on one side of the supply-demand graph. Immigrants increase both the demand & supply side, they require more jobs but also the increase in population increases demand for more products and services. There is no fixed amount of jobs in a country.

I do agree if a country were to let in 100 million immigrants over night or some insane number that it would mess up the economy, there is an upper bound to this.

Wonderful, then we agree, we are just haggling over the quantity or pace.

I would also introduce the concept of culture – if the economic indicators seem fine, but the culture is becoming balkanized and sectarian, then I would argue you still have a problem driven by quantity and or pace of immigration.

Well I mean I've never heard anyone argue in favour of absolutely unlimited immigration but okay.

How do you measure culture empirically and how can you empirically say that culture is being balkanized specifically by immigrants and not other factors? You can't just take anecdotal evidence to say okay no more immigration because you have big feelings about it. There are places in the world still where having a non-zero amount of people of a different race moving into the neighbourhood would trigger some people to make the claim that the culture is becoming balkanized and sectarian.

If there were a significant amount of such people coming in it would push up the cost of living for the average-(or below-average)-income Japanese citizen.

Look at any of the Western cities that became attractive for retirement or "investment properties" for wealthy international folks... it makes everything more expensive for everyone already there.

If the concern was just about preventing things from changing for existing citizens, restrictions across the income band would seem to make much more sense.

Given that that this policy is targeted against low-income foreigners I was under the impression it was meant to prevent downward wage pressure. Given the current political climate it may be more socially focused than I originally thought.

It restricts immigration to cities where the high wages are, ie. Tokyo which is itself already too crowded, and forces foreigners living in less populated parts of the country to leave, further depopulating it.

It also heavily disadvantages singles.

That makes sense (and seems undesirable). It's my understanding that Japan has a lot of near-ghost-towns with empty houses they badly need people to live in and improve (and presumably spend money in the area).

> Can someone explain why they think this is a detrimental practice for native Japanese?

You're quoting a practice applied to foreigners, but you say "for native Japanese". Maybe there was a typo, or I could be misreading?

Presumably they’re asking why this is being done, since it’s obviously not for the benefit of the immigrants.

That's my bad, it's poorly worded. I meant something closer to "why would this practice of excluding low-earning foreigners be bad for the native Japanese".

you get rich assholes that have an ability to casually leave so aren't really invested in the country.

gentrification pushing locals out. super simple

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