A General Message For Educators Seeking A Job in the Japanese University System

by David Alwinckle (Arudo Debito)

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Fellow educators, be advised:
The Japanese educational job market is becoming increasingly insecure for all educators. Japanese academics are losing their job security through the slow but planned elimination of tenure by central government policy. More important, however, are the deteriorating conditions for non-Japanese in Japan. Foreign educators' employment status (never very secure due to government targeting) is becoming even more ambiguous and abusable in terms of legal rights. I'll make my point right away: Know well what you are getting into before coming to Japan and assuming a position at a Japanese university. There are pitfalls that trap all too many inexperienced people. Following are some of those pitfalls, seen after several years of experience and legal cases over here, that I hope all will take care to avoid:

1. Foreigners are usually hired by Japanese universities under contract. This is highly disadvantageous. If you sign a contract, your continued employment is at the whim of your employer. Do not do this.
Fixed-term contracts are the norm for foreign faculty here. While the word "contract" may sound secure--more secure than none at all--this is not the case. Japanese do not have contracts; up until now Japanese receiving a full-time position have almost always been granted tenure, and from day one (meaning there is no standardized "up or out" system in Japan). This is generally still the case despite recent legal changes. Whether or not you agree with the principle of automatic tenure, the fact is that almost all Japanese full-timers have it, and almost all non-Japanese (and this includes Japan-born ethnic Koreans and Chinese) do not. Japan's academic job market is thus segregated by nationality.

This has had adverse results on professionality and job security. Contracts have been frequently used as a means to fire foreigners only for reasons unrelated to those professional, such as reaching their forties, not being "fresh" enough, not doing as they are told, or getting too expensive for the school's budget. This phenomenon has occurred at the Japanese government's bidding. The Ministry of Education (Monbushou) in 1991 began tacitly forcing universities to fire their older foreign faculty and replacing them with younger, cheaper foreigners. This meant that foreigners here, including the long-termers who have Japanese spouses and kids, house loans, paid-in taxes, and a nonrefundable investment in the Japanese Social Security system, were being recycled. It worked; from 1991 onwards, most older foreigners in the National and Public universities had their contracts terminated.

Contracted status renders foreigners powerless in other ways, including non-admittance to faculty meetings, no chance for promotion, even denial of biannual salary bonuses (which means that although compared to your Japanese colleagues you are getting paid more monthly, per annum your wages can drop by up to a third). These are nationally-enforced conditions that neither your tenured Japanese colleagues in Japan or in overseas universities have to deal with. The final nail in the coffin is Japanese law: arbitrary terminations of contract have been recently legally upheld in Japanese courts. Reasoning: if you sign a contract, the courts will assume you knew your position was only temporary. In sum, DO NOT SIGN A CONTRACT. YOU ARE SIGNING AWAY YOUR EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS.

2. Know what type of university you are getting into.
If it is a National (Kokuritsu) or Public (Kouritsu) University, chances are that you will be hired on a contract, since that is the policy all of them have been told to have towards foreigners until 1997. Despite recent liberalization's, few are changing their policies. If it is a Private University (Shiritsu, aka Watakushi-ritsu), there is more chance you will be given a tenured full-time position, but not much. If hiring you sight-unseen or with no connections, almost all universities will hire you on renewable contracts, while a few offer "tenure track". Almost none offer foreigners the same deal as Japanese: tenure from day one.

3. Know what kind of deal you are getting into
As Monbushou (The Japan Ministry of Education) requires universities to inform employees of employment conditions in advance, you should be told if there is a term limitation in the job advertisement. If they offer the garden-variety full-time contract, the duration is usually two to three years (though by the Sentaku Ninkisei Law they are supposed to be three years, no more, no less), renewable a fixed number of times or indefinitely (based upon the school's experience with previous foreigners).

But there is some fine print. Some, mostly the National and Public, cap the age of applicant at around 35, claiming that Monbushou requests that. Others say that anything other then contracts are impossible for foreigners; working at National and Public Universities would make foreigners into Civil Servants, and tenured foreign Civil Servants are forbidden by Monbushou.

This passing of the buck to the bureaucracy, is, not to put too fine a point on it, a lie. As of 1998, a statement issued by Monbushou, insists that ALL universities now have the authority themselves to determine the employment status of their foreign staff. Any employment restrictions based on race, age, gender, nationality, or anything else unrelated to educational qualification is purely self-imposed by the university. If questioned about these restrictions, Monbushou will deny any involvement (as it always has to diplomatic channels when Ambassador Mondale was still here). In sum, avoid contract positions if you want a secure job.

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