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Paper short abstract

This paper analyses Vietnamese trainees’ perceptions of policy gaps in Technical Intern Training Program. Drawing on interviews and survey data, it shows how extreme regulatory control produces stratified vulnerability and assesses implications for the new Employment for Skill Development system.

Paper long abstract

This study aims to determine the subjective perceptions of Vietnamese trainees on Japan's Technical Intern Training Program (TITP). The TITP imports unskilled labour as a side-door in Japan’s restrictive immigration policy, revealing significant policy gaps between the official mandate of international cooperation and the actual outcome of vulnerable TITP intern trainees. In 2024, Japan finally announced the abolishment of TITP, marking a drastic shift in Japan’s simple labour import from TITP-oriented acceptance to Specified Skilled Worker (SSW (i))-oriented acceptance.

Amid this transition, this study employs the concept of total institution (Chiavacci 2024), examining how extreme regulatory control over work mobility, migration commercialization, and life options shapes 156 Vietnamese trainees' experiences and extracts implications for the New System: Employment for Skill Development (ESD; Ikusei-Shūrō-Seido).

This study corroborates Chiavacci's (2024) three layers of extreme regulation. An interesting finding of this study is significant variation in how trainees experience them. Interview and survey data demonstrated that the trainees perceived restricted work mobility as a core policy flaw of the TITP that induced mal-implementation by employers. Moreover, trainees differ in debt levels, motivation (family obligation vs voluntary choice), and pre-departure information access. Those under more extreme regulatory control experience more mal-implementations in TITP, including what they describe as 'Sabetsu' (discrimination) and 'Kubetsu' (differentiation) in work conditions and treatment. This is reflected in survey findings where over 90% of respondents indicated they would not choose to work under TITP in Japan, if they could go back in time of decision-making again (n=105).

The New System reforms target some core structures of the previous TITP that trainees perceived as the roots of the gaps, such as job change prohibition. However, the clauses restricting job changes within the same job category, language proficiency, designated years they must serve before they request the job changes, will stratify the trainees, in which trainees under more extreme regulatory control would not be compensated but continue to be trapped in the system.