Japan Expat Workers: Updated Oct. 20, 2025.

'Mismatch' between training, needs may be behind Japan expat workers returning early: survey

Article source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20251014/p2a/00m/0bu/009000c

 Ideas

It's been suggested that more and more Japanese workers are declining assignments overseas and it's even a trend among Japanese students not wanting to study in foreign countries.

Some even suggest that many young Japanese don't want to travel to foreign countries as they just want to stay in Japan. It might be that some or many young Japanese have given up on life as they don't even like their jobs or their place in life.

While you see and hear about young people in other countries wanting to experience working in a foreign culture the opposite is true for the Japanese as they have become very insular and don't want to experience the outside world.

There has got to be a balance between company responsibility in helping young workers prepare for overseas assignments and young workers taking the initiative to get themselves ready for an overseas assignment. In many cases the companies might be doing their part, but in some cases no matter what the companies does to prepare a worker to go overseas, if the worker doesn't want to go there nothing will help in them adapting to the local culture or improving in the new foreign language.

Lack of language skills ranks 6th place

Language skills are usually never the main reason for young workers not adapting to overseas assignments as its usually a combination of being unable to adapt to the local culture and not being able to communicate effectively with local staff.

The same might said for some who go to Japan and are unable to adapt to Japanese culture and not able to effectively communicate with local Japanese workers.

Its not easy to fit into a supposed rigid work culture that some Japanese companies might have and or some subsidiaries of foreign companies in Japan as an expat from other countries aren't able to fit in due a number of reasons.

Pre-assignment training mandatory at below 30% of firms

Regardless of the training provided or not provided it's still important for the worker that is going to be posed overseas to take the initiative to find out as much as he/she can about that country. The internet has a lot of examples of how to adapt to another country along with what to do and what not to do in a country.

But at the same time, if a Japanese company is going to send an employee overseas to a foreign country, they should at least provide some training or information on the foreign country, its culture, what are the expected norms in that country and how to communicate effectively with the staff a person is going to be working with.

When Japanese employees return from their overseas assignments, companies should interview about the positives and negatives of their overseas experience. But the problem is, many of the workers might not be willing to say anything negative as they feel it might reflect on them in a negative way for future promotions so they never actually say about their overseas experience which companies never get the real story from the overseas worker.

Unfortunately many Japanese workers are reluctant to express their opinions as they feel it might hurt their chances for advancement in the company so they keep silent or just follow the normal mandate of not talking much at all.

Overseas assignments actually unpopular?

Again, as has been noted in other articles the trend of young workers wanting to work overseas has been less and less each decade as young workers just don't want to leave Japan. 

And again, Japanese young workers are becoming more insular each year as they just don't even want to travel overseas to experience foreign cultures, while workers in other countries usually are very eager to work overseas and have the chance to see, explore, and experience other countries.

Japan has a global talent problem on two fronts. On one front many young Japanese don't want to travel and work in foreign countries, which limits Japan from really growing home-grown global talent and on the second front, Japan has a significant immigration problem in that many young workers in other countries, who might be very qualified, with good Japanese language skills, but are not able to work in Japan due to the high immigration hurtles which seems to limit Japan getting enough global foreign talent into Japan.

At the present time, in Japan, there is a supposed labor shortage but there are many qualified foreign workers who might be able to help Japan with its labor shortage but the immigration situation in Japan just doesn't allow them to live and work in Japan as it would go a long way to decreasing the labor shortage in Japan.

Have a nice day!