Japan passes controversial new immigration bill to attract foreign workers - Polidicks

Given that Japan's birthrate is slowly climbing back up, I guess this is just a measure to patch up the economy for the time being without having to address the wages and work hours then.

dude just enact the handmaid's tale in Japan, problem solved

Yeah, you're right, most of the Japanese will have dementia by then.

Why the fuck would I want to work in Japan Sorry I value the ability to spend any amount of time whatsoever outside work.

Its not about workers. Its about tax payers. As the country's workforce gets older and retires they will become more dependent on government resources and produce less taxes. Even if workers somehow get a larger increase in wages and the tax rate increases it won't really solve the problem, the population of workers overall is just dwindling. Here are some age distribution graphs of developed countries: https://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/united-states-population-pyramid-2016.gif https://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/france-population-pyramid-2016.gif https://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/united-kingdom-population-pyramid-2016.gif These countries are all considered stage 4 on the demographic transition model. These countries tend to start developing a large economic burden with healthcare for the older generations (though the glut of baby boomers makes it worse). Here is Germany's graph, largely considered entering stage 5: https://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/germany-population-pyramid-2016.gif And here is Japan's: https://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/japan-population-pyramid-2016.gif Japan simply does not have the tax income to support this. Not only that, but the Japanese are notorious for saving too much, which is unusual since most people in developed countries save too little (especially in the United States), which further hurts the economy and the government's ability to control deflation. There was a point where raising wages, fixing work culture, and convincing the Japanese to have children would have worked. It is well past that time now, immigration in some form or other is the only way left.

I get most of what you want to say, but how is immigration "the only way left"? How will it help us, and how does it help it being an issue of "tax payers" as you say? I think it is only a short term solution, because it will only decrease wages even more in the long term if nothing else is done at the same time. A lot of these immigrants use their money outside of the country to support their families and such, so I would think it actually works against the Japanese economy, since the money is not both earned and spent in Japan. Like I said, automation also needs to become more widespread, and inevitably will become that way, because Japan is one of the most advanced countries in the world when it comes to that sort of stuff. In fact, it is already happening. It leads to workers being able to focus on more productive tasks, therefore increasing the amount of money they earn and spend.

Or they get sullen because they don't have a future. Automation is a double edged sword because its not only removes a job, but with the advanced automation now? It doesn't bring back any jobs either and the most recent incarnation of Automation actually hits the industries that Japan generally dominates at. Science, Accounting and Business. All 3 of these are going to become heavily automated and its going to negatively impact Japanese businesses which tend to favor to retrain workers but there may not be anything to retrain them with. If Automation is the big plan to solve the growing tax issue, your society is failing. Full stop.

I also never said that automation is the only solution. Things like education need a reform too.

If they actually get to settle in with their families and have a path towards citizenship they'll be spending more money in the country than not. They send money out of the country because they're there for work and solely work as it currently stands - there is incentive to go get money and not to become Japanese citizens. There is a significant difference between the two. Immigrants are the lifeblood to many countries, including the United States, for this very reason. While not every country realistically can or should do this, Japan doesn't have many options left. Automation will cause structural unemployment in the short term even if it raises wages. Plus, automation alone won't solve your problem. An education reform would take way too many years to have a visible effect too. Your solutions are unrealistic when they would only add to what's already the world's third largest government expenditure and not yield the immediate benefits necessary to stabilize your burdened healthcare systems and heavy deflationary forces.

That does not change the fact that immigration is a temporary solution. It's only purpose is to buy enough time for a real solution to be found. Automation is not enough by itself, but it's a step in the right direction.

Japan treats foreigners really bad. A lot of people that emigrate there tell me they can only get jobs as factory workers. Used to be that if you're nisei or sansei (second and third generation japaneses) you were a pariah, but I don't know how it goes nowadays.

send me over, i'll solve their population crisis in 3 easy steps