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johnner
Joined: 20 May 2006
Posts: 6
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 Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:45 pm Post subject: Less than 250,000 Yen. Illegal? |
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I've been combing the forums for an answer for
days, but haven't come up with an answer to why
many jobs pay less than 250,000 yen per month
for full-time positions.
I've read a pile of "teach in Japan" websites and
they all say that the "minimum wage" if you will, is
250,000 Yen, yet I see tons of jobs that pay less.
Especially dispatch ALT gigs. Obviously there must
be exceptions to this law. I wonder if it is related to
visa status or nationality.
Does anyone know how employers are getting around this?
Appreciating any input you all can give.
Jay |
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G Cthulhu
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
Posts: 1373
Location: Way, way off course.
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| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:14 pm Post subject: Re: Less than 250,000 Yen. Illegal? |
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| The minimum wage laws were done away with, what, ten years ago? |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:41 pm Post subject: |
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I believe the minimum wage law is still in effect, but it is an hourly wage, not a monthly one. Technically, according to the Labour Laws, you must be paid at least what a Japanese teacher would get for doing the same work.
Basically, there is no law that says 250K is the minimum. Many Japanese get paid less than that, too. And, there might also be another way to look at it. Your employer may declare to the tax authorities that you are part-time simply by the number of hours you work in the classrom (excluding prep time and other incidentals, that is). If so, even though you WORK more than 29.5 hours/week, you are declared officially otherwise, and that could (COULD, mind you, this is only hypothesizing) mean that you don't even deserve what a full-time Japanese person gets.
As an example, part-time office ladies barely get 180,000 yen/month, so that could be used to "justify" such a low wage for a teacher (and I've seen exactly that wage or lower (!) offered. |
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ironopolis
Joined: 01 Apr 2004
Posts: 379
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| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 11:50 pm Post subject: |
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Even when it was the norm (a legal requirement or not, I'm not sure) for a minimum salary of Y250k to be paid, there were quite a few schools who got round this. And I'm sure this will happen in some cases now.
One way they could do so is to ridiculously overcharge you for your accommodation, which was deducted from your monthly salary. I know of one person who was paid a Y250k salary, but was charged close on Y70k for his company provided apartment, when really he should have been paying about half of that for the particular place he had. There was no option for him to find his own accommodation, the school insisted teachers must live in the apartments they provided.
This guy also had his private health insurance and city tax plus all utility bills deducted at source by the employer and ended up with not much over Y150k of his Y250k salary ending up in his bank account every month.
So bottom line is, whatever the salary, check carefully exactly what they'll be taking out of that salary and compare with how you'd fare if you could make your own arrangements for the things deducted. |
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johnner
Joined: 20 May 2006
Posts: 6
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 1:51 am Post subject: |
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ironopolis & Glenski
Thanks for the time you took replying
to my inquiry. It looks like this is not
a simple matter and that little details
need to be looked at before signing
any contract. Japanese labor laws are
more complex than I expected. I'll take
a look at General Union's site to see if I
can find any insites into this and will post
back if I find anything useful to the community.
Thanks again for your insightful replies
Johnner |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:14 am Post subject: |
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| Of course there is another factor to consider and that is the amount of money you need to earn to qualify for a work visa. If you are being paid substantially less than 250,000 yen then immigration may consider you to be unable to support yourself. Most dispatch companies will want you to be a resident of Japan with a full visa before employing you on the basis that you won't earn enough money with them to qualify for a visa. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:22 am Post subject: |
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Technically, you are going to find darned little about a "minimum salary" needed for work visa. Basically, the MOFA site descriptions say that...
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| The applicant should receive no less salary than a Japanese national would receive for comparable work. |
This holds for the following types of visas:
Investor/Business Manager
Medical Services
Researcher
Instructor
Engineer
Specialist in Humanities/International Services
Intra-company Transferee
Nothing is noted for:
Skilled Labor
College Student
Pre-college Student
Trainee
Entertainer (The minimum for this visa is 200,000 yen/month, and even then, the following 2 exceptions are made: "In cases where the applicant is to engage in public entertainment other than theatrical or musical performances, he or she should receive no less salary than a Japanese national would receive for comparable work.
In cases where the applicant is to engage in show business other than public entertainment, he or she should engage in one of the following activities and should receive no less salary than a Japanese national would receive for comparable work.")
http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/appendix1.html#6
So, just how do they determine what a Japanese person would comparably make? THAT is the key question to me. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 3:49 am Post subject: Re: Less than 250,000 Yen. Illegal? |
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| johnner wrote: |
I've read a pile of "teach in Japan" websites and
they all say that the "minimum wage" if you will, is
250,000 Yen, yet I see tons of jobs that pay less.
Especially dispatch ALT gigs. ...Does anyone know how employers are getting around this?
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Because the minimum salary in Japan is the minimum amount that employers offer that they can get somebody to take. It is not 250K.
If people refused to work for low wages, then the result would be that wages would go up because the only alternative would be to not provide a foreigner, and that's not going to happen without the Japanese company/school/BoE looking bad.
But the thing is that there ***are*** people who will work for the amount offered, many of them are people who are already in Japan and don't need things like a place to live because they live with their spouse, or they are naiive and don't realize the cost of living here can make it very difficult to get by on the low salary (or think they can make up the difference with private classes, which in fact means working many, many more hours to make up the same amount).
Japanese workplace culture isn't really set up for working with foreigners (or even a lot of the young Japanese people who are in the labour pool now). Japanese people traditionally don't switch jobs if a better one comes along (and a lot of the time, it is very difficult for a Japanese person to move from one job to another anyway- many companies keep to lifelong employment theories when it comes to hires- ie hire cheap, young and fresh- but increasingly are downsizing people to increase profit- making it very, very difficult for the downsized person to get a position with another company). So a problem comes when a company continually worsens employement condidtions, and then doesn't understand when the employee moves off to a better job. |
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jademonkey
Joined: 30 Mar 2007
Posts: 180
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:36 am Post subject: |
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| johnner wrote: |
Japanese labor laws are
more complex than I expected. |
Welcome to Bureaucracy Land. Seriously, try filling out a bank slip. I'll give you 1000yen if you don't have to rewrite it at least once.  |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:01 am Post subject: |
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GambatteBingBangBOOM wrote:
| Quote: |
| there ***are*** people who will work for the amount offered, many of them are people who are already in Japan and don't need things like a place to live because they live with their spouse, or they are naiive and don't realize the cost of living here can make it very difficult to get by on the low salary (or think they can make up the difference with private classes |
There are also many people here from English speaking countries that many people don't consider the traditional ones. I'm talking about places like Kenya. People from those countries find it easier to live on a smaller wage because it's larger than they're used to back home.
| Quote: |
| many companies keep to lifelong employment theories when it comes to hires |
This is becoming less and less of a situation. What you see now with Japanese workers is a trend towards hiring the temps over the full-time permanent workers. But, we digress about our own plight... |
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johnner
Joined: 20 May 2006
Posts: 6
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| Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 2:45 am Post subject: |
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Thanks a ton for all your input.
This helps a metric ton.
You guys really do make a difference
in this forum!
Warmest regards
Johnner |
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sethness
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 209
Location: Hiroshima, Japan
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| Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 5:48 pm Post subject: |
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To bring Glenski's off-topic comment back into the mainstream conversation...
| Quote: |
| What you see now with Japanese workers is a trend towards hiring the temps over the full-time permanent workers. But, we digress about our own plight... |
This is very, VERY true. A typical office currently employs less than half of their workers directly-- the rest are #koff-koff# "temp" workers on yearly contracts, who make less, have more bosses, and have less power than an ordinary employee.
Likewise, non-fulltime jobs are also far too f###ing common in this country. It's rare to see a job-offer that DOESN'T say "part time / arubaito / Frita", these days.
This disturbing trend extends to teaching. Many, many ads for EFL teachers will say "part-time hours" and "teacher must already reside in Japan and have a visa and a driver's license". Translation: lots of commuting, with very little paid work, and f##ck-all for job security.
Twenty years ago, Japan's corporate climate was famous for treating workers as lifelong investments-- a big til-death-do-we-part family.
These days, Japan's corporate environment expects the same old commitment from its workers, but offers those workers near nothing for job security.
Sorry to sound bleak.
To end on a happy note: Find a small school. Get a full-time contract. Don't accept ANYTHING less than 25-hours-a-week, 250,000 yen a month, one-year contract.
Schools know that students have loyalty to the teacher, NOT to the school, so the smaller the school, the better your chances are that they will work hard to keep you. |
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ironopolis
Joined: 01 Apr 2004
Posts: 379
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 1:50 am Post subject: |
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| sethness wrote: |
To bring Glenski's off-topic comment back into the mainstream conversation...
| Quote: |
| What you see now with Japanese workers is a trend towards hiring the temps over the full-time permanent workers. But, we digress about our own plight... |
This is very, VERY true. A typical office currently employs less than half of their workers directly-- the rest are #koff-koff# "temp" workers on yearly contracts, who make less, have more bosses, and have less power than an ordinary employee.
Likewise, non-fulltime jobs are also far too f###ing common in this country. It's rare to see a job-offer that DOESN'T say "part time / arubaito / Frita", these days.
This disturbing trend extends to teaching. Many, many ads for EFL teachers will say "part-time hours" and "teacher must already reside in Japan and have a visa and a driver's license". Translation: lots of commuting, with very little paid work, and f##ck-all for job security.
Twenty years ago, Japan's corporate climate was famous for treating workers as lifelong investments-- a big til-death-do-we-part family.
These days, Japan's corporate environment expects the same old commitment from its workers, but offers those workers near nothing for job security.
Sorry to sound bleak.
To end on a happy note: Find a small school. Get a full-time contract. Don't accept ANYTHING less than 25-hours-a-week, 250,000 yen a month, one-year contract.
Schools know that students have loyalty to the teacher, NOT to the school, so the smaller the school, the better your chances are that they will work hard to keep you. |
Didn't agree with sethness on the other Nova thread, but I very much agree with the above - a very accurate assessment of the general situation in Japan.
The advice about finding a small school where the students have more loyalty to the individual teacher is good, but bear in mind that (a) such schools are becoming harder and harder to find; and (b) smaller schools do possibly carry a greater risk of things going pear-shaped. In nearly a decade in Japan I've known plenty of people justifiably fed up with their big eikaiwa job, but never anyone whose salary wasn't paid there. I've also known a few people at smaller schools (myself included) whose employer went bust or was suddenly in similar dire straits. Your small school boss may be very nice, but they often don't want to admit their financial problems to themselves let alone give their teachers much prior warning of it.
edit - A brief P.S. - I should point out that the example I gave in my post of April 2nd further up this thread, of the guy really ripped off by his employer, was someone employed by a small school, on a one year contract for Y250,000 a month. Be careful - there are many pitfalls to avoid wherever you look, so weigh up the WHOLE situation. |
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