Know your rights as a foreign worker in Japan during COVID-19

Covid-19 does not only hurt us physically, but it also hurt our economy. Following the state-of-emergency declaration by the Japanese government last week, many companies in major cities such as Tokyo, Chiba, Osaka, Hyogo have been put on hold or shut down. Numerous sectors have already seen widespread layoffs including restaurants and entertainment industries. 

In times of unknown, it is crucial to know your rights. Specific regulations with the aim of protecting foreign employees due to the redundancies have been issued by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. However, many information is only available in Japan. 

●Foreign workers are entailed to same treatment as Japanese nationals

1. Companies must pay a leave allowance to Japanese as well as foreign workers when they are forced to take days off from work by the company.
2. When you take days off from work because your children's schools are closed, you can use paid vacation days just like Japanese workers.
3. The subsidy the national government pays companies to protect worker employment can be used for Japanese as well as foreign workers.
4. Companies cannot freely fire you at will. When a company wants to fire a foreign worker, the same rules as Japanese workers must be followed.
When is the dismissal legal?

Above is the guidance for foreign workers when they were requested by employers to take days off as a measure to tackle the pandemic. How about knowing in which cases are companies allowed to dismiss an employee? Here is another summary for you.

There is considerable precedent in case law to the effect that it is necessary to meet the following four criteria when making employees redundant as part of company restructuring (i.e., dismissal of employees in order to reduce staff numbers as a result of deteriorating business performance) in order for the redundancies to be deemed reasonable.
1. Necessity for personnel cut (人員整理の必要性 jininseiri no hituyousei): The company must prove that its business circumstances are such that redundancies are unavoidable and necessary.
2. Effort to avoid redundancy (解雇回避努力義務の履行 kaikokaihidoryokugimu no rikou ): The company must prove that it has made serious managerial efforts to avoid redundancies such as by re-assigning staff and advertising for voluntary redundancies.
3. Reasonable selection (被解雇者選定の合理性 hikaikokusyasentei no gourisei): The company must prove that the standards by which it selected those to be made redundant are reasonable, and that redundancies were carried out fairly.
4. Reasonable process (手続の妥当性 tetsuzuki no datousei): The company must prove that it conducted sufficient consultations with workers and labour unions.

IF you are struggling from job loss or  business opportunity loss due to COVID-19, there are several aids available including "Emergency Economic Package" which is available for anyone who has a resident register as of April 27, 2020. If you want to know more about more about financial support available, check my other note.