Job Discussion Forums

[amanleyskj]

Good morning,

I am in the process now of receiving a visa with the school I have signed a contract to teach with, however another work opportunity has recently presented itself for me here in Japan. There is of course a penalty with the school should I leave before the six-month mark, but I am prepared to pay that next month should I then decide to quit work with the school before effectively starting and pursue other work.

Would this visa be mine to own? And if I do own this still, would the new work that I do be affected by the fact that I have a Humanities Visa?

I am willing to consider making the jump only because I have heard visas are owned and essentially controlled by the person, and not the company that sponsored that person.

Any advice you have on the matter would be welcomed.

Thank you

[Lamarr]

Once you've got a visa, you've got the visa until it expires. They won't cancel it if you quit your employment. If you tell your employer you're going to quit, I've heard stories of some employers threatening to cancel the visa, contact immigration, get you arrested or thrown out of the country etc., to try and intimidate you out of quitting. You can safely ignore that, they're just empty threats.

The humanities visa covers teaching jobs. If your new employment was in a different field not covered by the humanities visa, then you're officially supposed to get the appropriate visa for the new line of work (e.g. if you got a job as a musician in a band, you'd be supposed to change it to an entertainer's visa). Whether people change fields but manage to continue on the same visa, I wouldn't know.

There's a page on the immigration dept. website that explains all the different types of visas and what kind of work they cover.

[amanleyskj]

Lamarr,

I appreciate your thorough answer! I will check the immigration department's website now and check to see under which category I would likely fall.

[Rooster.]

What is the penalty?