Re: [tlug] Embedded linux dev wanting to find work in Tokyo.. Seeking advice.

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Keith Bawden writes:

 > AFAIK Visa arrangements are reciprocal and therefore certain
 > differences will be seen depending on where you are from.

This is the general practice because it's easy to negotiate, but
asymmetric arrangements are common.  For example, in the early 90s
Ireland offered young Americans working holiday visas.

 > > It's certainly possible to transfer from a short-term to a working
 > > visa (I've done it too :) ). I'm also British, but as far as I'm aware
 > > this isn't restricted to particular nationalities.
 > 
 > This, as someone else indicated, may be a newish (last ten years)
 > thing. I switched visa types (they were similar types too) in '98 and
 > had to leave the country to do so. I went from a standard student visa
 > to a kenkyusei visa.

Well, the relevant Japanese labor market is quite screwy these days.
I can't speak for mass production shiritsu daigaku or for the elite
public universities, but in the mid-level and wannabe elite
universities there are very few students who want to have 3K jobs (no,
not those, I mean jobs requiring deep Knowledge, a dash of Kreativity,
and a desire to Kick ass).  Even a lot of the CS majors really thirst
for jobs coding programs to manage accounts receivable in city banks.
So the supply of Japanese looking for the kind of jobs we're talking
about here, while it isn't declining, is no way keeping up with
demand.

I'm not surprised the bureaucracy is making things lenient in your
market (at least).  Even our Bush-league administration back here in
the 'States has figured out that immigration, legal or not, is good
for the economy.  I was at Cisco a couple days ago after hours, and
there were two basketball games going.  90% of the players were Indian
or whatever, and in the middle of the game one of them shouts (in
perfect Central Valley dialect) "hey, like, cut it out!  we don't all
speak Hindi any more, OK?"  I gather that guy grew up here, but I bet
the Hindi-speaking half of them were on H1-B visas.

This doesn't mean things are easy for the supply side (us ;-), just
that the demand side is feeling a lot of pain these days world-wide.