Following the Liberal Democratic Party¡¯s electoral landslide last month, the government has once again affirmed a familiar contradiction: Japan will expand its reliance on foreign labor while insisting it has no ¡°immigration policy.¡±
This long-standing sleight of hand was crystallized during the creation of the ikusei sh¨±r¨ training and employment system. In parliamentary deliberations before its passage in June 2024, the government stated plainly: ¡°The introduction of this system is not intended to be an ¡®immigration policy.¡¯¡±
This logic has remained remarkably consistent across successive administrations. By relying on a 2018 definition by the Cabinet that equates ¡°immigration policy¡± only with the permanent, large-scale settlement of families, the government maintains a persistent tatemae, or pretense: it can expand residency paths like the Specified Skilled Worker visa ¡ª which functions as a de facto immigration route ¡ª while flatly denying that any ¡°immigration policy¡± exists. Semantics like this allow the state to procure labor while preserving the political myth of a homogenous nation, effectively inviting workers but ignoring the human beings.
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