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Go With Interac or Take a Chance with JET
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ripslyme

Joined: 29 Jan 2005
Posts: 481
Location: Japan

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:22 am Post subject:

rhoadesd20 wrote:

Quick update:

I just got an email back from an assistant manager of Interac about the Shakai Hoken. The cost is based upon your monthly income. So for the first month, since the Japanese government has no information concerning your income the price will be 7.5-8.5% of your monthly salary. However, in the second year and after it could go up drastically. Considering Interac's pay, that isn't very good news...

ESPECIALLY since the assistant manager didn't answer my question on whether or not the company would help pay for it....

eeek....

That doesn't sound like Shakai Hoken. That sounds like Kokumin Kenko Hoken. If it is Kokumin Kenko Hoken then Interac will not help pay for it. It's not a fault of Interac, they're not obligated by law to contribute to that plan.

Shakai Hoken - you are entered into this plan by your employer. It is more expensive, and that is after taking your employer's contribution into account. However, this is both health insurance and pension. Depending on your home country, you can get up to 3 years' worth refunded to you when you return to your home country.

Kokumin Kenko Hoken - you have to sign up for this yourself at the city hall/ward office. Assuming they don't hit you up for back payments, the first year is very cheap. The 2nd year, the monthly payments can go up by a factor of ten. This is just health insurance; nothing is refundable.

Glenski

Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:17 am Post subject:

ripslyme wrote:

That doesn't sound like Shakai Hoken. That sounds like Kokumin Kenko Hoken. If it is Kokumin Kenko Hoken then Interac will not help pay for it.

I agree on both counts.

ripslyme wrote:

It's not a fault of Interac, they're not obligated by law to contribute to that plan.

Not necessarily. They have enough employees to qualify to offer shakai hoken, as long as the teacher works more than 29.5 hours per week. Any place that counts just the hours in the classroom is using a sneaky but legal loophole to get out of it. Be very certain how they count your hours!

Glenski

Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:23 am Post subject:

rhoadesd20 wrote:

Just thought of a few more questions:

1) What is Interac (and Eikaiwas for that matter) going to do about Shakai Hoken. If I went with Interac and began working in March they would, obviously, not be obligated to enroll me because forced Sakai Hoken for a VISA doesn't start until April.

2) However, what are all of these companies going to do once it is required for a VISA? Since you have to have enrolled in the insurance before coming to Japan they would therefore have to help pay for half of it.

1. Look at Interac's FAQs. They don't offer that. They have their own plan, or you can get kokumin kenko hoken because they only count 29.5 hours of work per week.

2. Nobody knows at this point. You don't have to be enrolled in the plan before you set foot in Japan. Apply the day of your arrival or the day after. You will not be expected to work those days anyway.

GambateBingBangBOOM

Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:42 am Post subject:

rhoadesd20 wrote:

2) However, what are all of these companies going to do once it is required for a VISA? Since you have to have enrolled in the insurance before coming to Japan they would therefore have to help pay for half of it.

How do you figure *that*? Nobody knows for sure what will happen but here is a possible solution that a lot of dispatch companies may take:

1. Tell new hires that they have to enrol in the government health plan if they want to be able to stay in Japan after their current visa expires. OR tell new employees that it is impossible to renew a visa. OR tell new employees that they HAVE to be enrolled in the government health plan, but that it's really cheap (and so just neglect to mention that it goes up the second year).

2. When their current employees go to get their visa renewed and they're told they need to pay back 600,000 as well as pay the current year 300,000 so they call up their dispatch company to find out what's going on, the dispatch company will refuse to talk to them and issue an email saying that it was their responsibility to have enrolled in the government health insurance and there's nothing they can do about it. Often employees' visas start and end roughly around the same time as their job and the dispatch company knows when the visa expires. They may just refuse to renew for the contract year when the visa will need to be renewed, saving them of the headache of dealing with it at all.

ripslyme

Joined: 29 Jan 2005
Posts: 481
Location: Japan

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:12 am Post subject:

Glenski wrote:

ripslyme wrote:

It's not a fault of Interac, they're not obligated by law to contribute to that plan.

Read my entire paragraph again. What I meant was that they merely don't have to contribute anything to Kokumin Kenko Hoken. I agree with the point you brought up with this though - yes, they should enroll teachers that work more than 29.5 hours per week in Shakai Hoken. The counting of hours per week should include not only classroom time, but ALL of the time the teacher is present at the school.

seklarwia

Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:19 am Post subject:

Glenski wrote:

Apply the day of your arrival or the day after. You will not be expected to work those days anyway.

You can't apply without a permanent address, which you won't have until after training. And even after I had arrived at my placement, my ward office didn't allow me to enrol until I received my ARC which was about a month after I landed. But I was fortunate enough to only have half days at the time due to the teachers doing home visits every afternoon.

rhoadesd20

Joined: 06 Sep 2009
Posts: 8

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 3:26 pm Post subject:

Oh thank you everyone, I guess I misunderstood. I thought, since it was a company with more than five people, that you 'had' to do shakai hoken, and didn't have the option for the other one. But that clears it up, thank you!

GambateBingBangBOOM

Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:28 pm Post subject:

rhoadesd20 wrote:

Oh thank you everyone, I guess I misunderstood. I thought, since it was a company with more than five people, that you 'had' to do shakai hoken, and didn't have the option for the other one.

But that clears it up, thank you!

No, no. That was mostly right. If the company has more than five full time employees, then it is obligated to put its employees under the shakai hoken system. Companies pay the same amount as the employees for those systems (an employee pays 30,000. The company is also paying 30,000). ALTs are obligated to work 40 to 45 hours a week. But they are counted as part-time because the dispatch companies report the maximum number of hours they are contracted to teach as the number of hours they work. Basically, dispatch companies tell the government that ALTs are part-time, and therefore do not need to be put on a shakai hoken system (which mean that they could leave the school when they aren't actually in-class). They tell the ALTs that they are full-time and have to do whatever the school tells them. The school tells them they have to be at school even on days when they have no classes. Schools have no idea what the contract between the dispatch company and the ALT says. ALTs have no idea what the contract between the school and the dispatch company says. Neither knows what the dispatch company reports to the government.

The government cracks down on dispatch / temp agencies on an industry by industry basis.

Glenski

Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:35 pm Post subject:

seklarwia wrote:

Glenski wrote:

Apply the day of your arrival or the day after. You will not be expected to work those days anyway.

You can't apply without a permanent address, which you won't have until after training.

Not everyone (perhaps MOST everyone) has any training. Training itself may consist of a day or a week, too. I arrived and went to the ward office the very next day.

Quote:

And even after I had arrived at my placement, my ward office didn't allow me to enrol until I received my ARC which was about a month after I landed.

That sounds strange because you should be able to apply on the same day. I did. Perhaps ward offices are not in sync.

seklarwia

Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:51 pm Post subject:

Glenski wrote:

Not everyone (perhaps MOST everyone) has any training. Training itself may consist of a day or a week, too. I arrived and went to the ward office the very next day.

Well since this looking thread is looking at Interac, they will have training most likely not in their placement city and regardless of whether they are or not, all will be staying at a hotel. So they can't do the same. And some of the Hiroshima lot I was with did a stretch of hotel hopping even after training. So didn't have an address for quite a bit longer than the 4/5 days the rest of us had to wait.

Quote:

That sounds strange because you should be able to apply on the same day. I did. Perhaps ward offices are not in sync.

My ward office was quite adament that I do it when I come to collect my ARC. The Japanese helper I was with asked several different members of staff but they all said no. When I picked up my ARC, I asked again and they directed me over to a different desk where they issued me with my little blue card within a few minutes.

Inflames

Joined: 02 Apr 2006
Posts: 486

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 2:23 am Post subject:

Glenski wrote:

1. Look at Interac's FAQs. They don't offer that. They have their own plan, or you can get kokumin kenko hoken because they only count 29.5 hours of work per week.

Interac's FAQs aren't correct for the entire company. Some ALTs are enrolled in shakai hoken (it depends on the contract with the BoE).

Does Interac enroll employees in unemployment insurance?

Glenski

Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 3:45 am Post subject:

seklarwia wrote:

So, people are expected to be employees of a company and not be protected in case of emergencies like car accident, influenza, earthquake, fire, etc.? The employer, not just Interac, should realize that their teachers are just as human and prone to any sort of accident as the next person. Thus, they should not just try to set them up with a place to stay, but provide the ward office with necessary temporary information to get them settled with insurance, pension plan, even if that means using the main office as a temp address.

Quote:

That sounds strange because you should be able to apply on the same day. I did. Perhaps ward offices are not in sync.

My ward office was quite adament that I do it when I come to collect my ARC. [/quote]And, how did they feel about what I wrote above? Obviously, ward offices run things case by case, and perhaps one benefit of having many things done by immigration alone (as in a proposed law) would eliminate this case by case crud.

Quote:

The Japanese helper I was with asked several different members of staff but they all said no. When I picked up my ARC, I asked again and they directed me over to a different desk where they issued me with my little blue card within a few minutes.

And, why wouldn't they do that on the day you applied for the ARC and got a temporary ARC until the plastic one arrived? That temp card was just as valid, so enrollment in insurance should have been immediate. Stupid bureaucrats.

Glenski

Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 3:46 am Post subject:

Inflames wrote:

Interac's FAQs aren't correct for the entire company. Some ALTs are enrolled in shakai hoken (it depends on the contract with the BoE).

Do you mean it depends on the number of hours each BOE assigns? If you mean something else, I'd sure like to know because the BOE is not the teacher's employer, you know!

GambateBingBangBOOM

Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:02 am Post subject:

Glenski wrote:

Inflames wrote:

Interac's FAQs aren't correct for the entire company. Some ALTs are enrolled in shakai hoken (it depends on the contract with the BoE).

Do you mean it depends on the number of hours each BOE assigns? If you mean something else, I'd sure like to know because the BOE is not the teacher's employer, you know!

Shakai hoken isn't used at BoEs. They are public offices, and therefore are under public insurance (though there are apparently some differences between being a public employee and not being a public employee and being on National Insurance. I don't know what they are, I was told this by a former supervisor when I was leaving the JET program, and therefore changing from a public employee to a private one).

If Interac pays your salary, then Shakai Hoken would be through Interac.

Glenski

Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:07 am Post subject:

Figured as such, GBBBOOM. It is still confusing to me to see that an Interac employee might be told to have shakai hoken depending "on the contract with the BoE". WTF does the BOE have to do with anything?

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