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Vietnamese Technical Trainees in Japan Voice Concerns Amidst COVID-19

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Bao Quyen Tran
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Abstract

The Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) – a short-term labor rotation system that originated in 1993 – brings young and middle-aged workers from developing countries to Japan with a stated objective to transfer Japanese vocational skills and techniques to these workers. However, the program faced criticism for doing little more than covering the chronic labor shortage in unskilled blue-collar jobs that are regarded unfavorably by many Japanese in recent years. This paper highlights the heightened vulnerability of the technical intern trainees as cheap and disposable sources of labor, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on digital communications with 16 Vietnamese technical trainees and an analysis of the content on media platforms since the outbreak of the pandemic, the paper extends my previous work on the challenges faced by technical intern trainees, analyzing the handling of Japanese governments and the accepting companies. The article also introduces the roles of support groups in Japan devoted to protecting vulnerable technical intern trainees. At a moment when the Japanese government is reforming and promoting the TITP, this analysis of Vietnamese technical trainees during the COVID-19 crisis is particularly timely.

Keywords

COVID-19vulnerable populationstechnical intern traineesTechnical Intern Training ProgramVietnamese migrant workers
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 18 , September 2020 , e10
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2020

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