foreign workers ruled out 19 april 2019.jpg
April 19, 2019
Japanese Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita has outlined a restriction pertaining to the country’s new visa program. He said foreign nationals won’t be allowed to work in Japan if their main task is to do decontamination work at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
 
Yamashita’s remark on Friday follows the plant operator’s statement that it will accept foreign workers hired under the new visa program to help decommission the facility.
 
Tokyo Electric Power Company says that construction, industrial machinery and automobile maintenance will be relevant to the decommissioning. The utility told the contractors to make sure they hire foreign workers legally.
 
TEPCO also says it’s not aware of a shortage of workers in the decommissioning process, but that it is up to the contractors to decide whether to hire foreigners under the new visa category.
 
Yamashita said that the Justice Ministry and other relevant ministries will ensure that foreigners in the program are eligible for the jobs they are hired to do.
 
Yamashita said foreigners coming to work in the construction sector must not be hired if their main job is decontamination work.
 
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the industry ministry will supervise TEPCO to make sure the utility’s operations are legal and that the plant’s reactors are decommissioned safely and stably.
 
A revised immigration law that took effect on April 1 allows foreign nationals with certain vocational skills to work in a range of sectors under a new visa category.