1.Residence status of foreigners working at convenience stores and McDonald’s
Due to my work, I often go to convenience stores and McDonald’s in Akasaka, Tokyo, and most of the employees who take orders are from foreign countries. What kind of residence status do they have?
Previously, foreigners were not allowed to work in unskilled labor, but from April 2019 when acceptance began under the “Specified Skilled Worker” status of residence. ”, if foreign nationals clear a certain skill level and Japanese language proficiency level in 12 specific industrial fields*, they have been able to perform unskilled labor under this qualification.
However, the convenience store industry is not covered.
*Specific industrial fields for “Specified Skilled Worker”
- ① Nursing care
- ② Building cleaning
- ③Materials, industrial machinery, electrical/electronic information related manufacturing industry
- ④Construction
- ⑤Shipbuilding/marine industry
- ⑥Car maintenance
- ⑦ Aviation
- ⑧Accommodation
- ⑨Agriculture
- ⑩Fishery
- ⑪Food and beverage manufacturing industry
- ⑫ Restaurant industry
The residence status of many foreigners working at convenience stores, McDonald’s, etc. is “Student”.
“Student” itself is not a work qualification, so they need to receive another permission to engage in income-earning activities (28 hours per week maximum).
Since McDonald’s is a restaurant business, some people work as “Specified Skilled Worker” (as full-time employees).
There are also people who are engaged in the activities with the permission under the status of “Dependent” or those who are working under residence statuses such as “Spouse of Japanese National, etc.”, which has no work restrictions.
2.Movements in the convenience store industry
The convenience store industry has been lobbying the government to include it in the specified industry field since the creation of the “Specified Skilled Worker”, and the government is also continuing to consider it.
One of the issues is seemed that the Specified Skills System imposes a large burden on accepting companies and business owners (so called “affiliated organization”).
Convenience store chains, which are franchise-style, are likely to have the store owner as the organization to which they belong, and he/she is responsible not only for accepting foreigners, but also for the burden of duties imposed on the affiliated organization, such as orientation before and after acceptance, and transportation at the time of acceptance.
Store owners are burdened with human resources and expenses such as creating a considerable amount of planning and performance data, filing notifications with the Immigration Bureau and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, and responding to audits, which has a large impact on store profits.
Although this point is not mentioned in the above-mentioned approach from the convenience store industry to the government, if the fundamental shortage of human resources is to be solved by participation in specific skill fields, at least this kind of issue should be solved. I think that the headquarters should make it a shared service and provide it at a low price that does not put pressure on store owners’ profits.