kuri wrote:
> <declan_murphy@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> > Yes. That was kind of why I wanted to ask him what he does. It isn't
> > necessarily easy, but I know quite a few people (carpenters,
> > restauranters etc) who do exactly what they did at home.
>
> I know a few too, versus lots that don't.
>
> But I don't think so many had at their arrival what you mysteriously call :
>
> >> > a work visa for something reflecting your skills and experience?

Depends on the latter. The Irish restauranter
http://www.tadgspub.com/
was a chef in Ireland, and his first job in Japan was also as a chef.
Same with a Nepali guy who has 3 restaurants now.
http://okazaki.yamasa.org/english/shops/shubakamana/index.php
He came to work in Japan as a chef too.

I'm not sure about the carpenters. The Canucks were brought in
specifically as carpenters, apparently because of the materials,
whereas the Aussie bloke I think started working when he had a spouse
visa. The stock broker bloke was a stock broker at home, same with a
hotel manager. There are of course plenty of people who don't do in
Japan what that did at home (including me), or who don't do now
anything related to the category of their first work visa. Doesn't mean
they are all ex-eikaiwa drones.

> Probably you can end up doing many sorts of jobs, but if Chris needs to get
> a work visa, that may be hard to get something else than an
> eikaiwa-sponsored visa.

Depends on what it is he does at home, and in some cases whether he has
the language skills require to shift the skills & experience.

> Now, it's still possible to drop your sponsor after 24 hours and start you
> takoyaki yatai. But aren't they trying to change the law in order to tie us
> better to exploitators and prevent us from stealing  jobs nihonjins are able
> to do ?
>
> Kuri

I haven't seen any reference to changes in the laws, but the briefings
we get each month from Immigration have become more insistent about
category jumping. I think this may have been what had the crusader
frothing recently. If someone is employed as an instructor, and they
then earn some cash from writing articles etc, then they are in breach
of their category unless they do a change of status to specialist in
humanities (which still lets them teach and keep their prior
contract/employment). And so on and so forth. I don't have any problems
though with what Immigration is trying to do on that front.