Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Health Insurance and Visa Applications

I have some updated information on the glowing topic of the new "rule" in Japan that will see the immigration bureau ask for health insurance enrollment documentation in order to approve visa applications and extensions.

It has been reported that as of April 2010 that the Immigration Bureau will begin asking for documentation on foreigner enrollment in the national health system as part of the process of receiving permission to live in Japan. This is caused an uproar in the foreign community, because;

1. There is no enforcement of enrollment in the health system of Japanese nationals, and therefore can be regarded as a discrimination against foreigners

2. Many foreigners don't want to be in the system anyway

3. Many companies would prefer their employees not to be in the system, as it reduces their labor spend

However, new information from a reliable source has arrived on my desk today in the form of answers to the following three questions from the Immigration Bureau themselves (answers in red below);

A. What is the purpose of the new immigration guideline?
B. Would the new immigration guideline be implemented in April 2010?
C. What would be the best way to express our organizations concerns regarding the new guideline

The answers received from the Immigration Bureau were as follows;

A. The purpose of the new guideline is to encourage all citizens to join a national health scheme.

B. The new immigration guideline would definitely NOT be a factor in processing visa applications from April of 2010. Until the guideline becomes a law the immigration office will not actively use the guideline as a criteria to accept or deny visa applications. The immigration office may recommend to applicants not enrolled in a national health plan that they enroll, but they will not use the lack of enrollment as a criteria for denying or approving visas.

C. Both the immigration office and Ministry of Justice have already received numerous concerns from large organizations, including Keidanren, regarding the implementation of the new health certificate guideline therefore it is very likely the DPJ and the Ministry of Justice will review the guideline prior to making any further recommendations as to how it should be implemented or whether it should become a law.

It therefore seems that this guideline will not be a big issue initially after all.

Don't rush out and get enrolled for the Japanese health package yet!!

Rental housing in Tokyo or Nagoya? Serviced Apartments in Nagoya? Relocation in Tokyo and Nagoya? Car / Furniture Leasing and Purchase in Tokyo or Nagoya? www.japanhomesearch.com and www.relojapan.com. We want to help you in Japan!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Relocation Industry Trends

Rental housing in Tokyo or Nagoya? Serviced Apartments in Nagoya? Relocation in Tokyo and Nagoya? Car / Furniture Leasing and Purchase in Tokyo or Nagoya? http://www.japanhomesearch.com/ and http://www.relojapan.com/. We want to help you in Japan!

I recently spent two weeks in the US visiting some clients and checking out the world housing and relocation industry to get some insight into how things will be for Japan moving forward. The good news is that for US Relocation companies international relocations look to be quite stable; volume is down, but while watching costs, multinational companies are still moving people. The same can't be said for the US domestic market, which appears to be in alot of trouble. Home inventories are large on someone's books (someone has the inventory, but obviously nobody wants to say they do), people are scared to move, and companies are not moving people, as they continue to lay off staff.

So the bad news is that US companies, which contributes the most to the international relocation industry, are still not employing people; alas many of them are still laying people off. This will be detrimental to any projected increase in volumes moving into 2010; probably not going to happen until US companies start growing again. There is some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of European countries entering the relocation industry; finally we are seeing European companies looking to outsource some of their HR functions as they look for cost reduction solutions.

However, on my US trip, there was one unanimous opinion across all relocation professionals and that was we are now looking at a "NEW NORM". Things are not going to be as they were. The "new norm" is still to be figured out, but here are some trends from a Global Relocation Company in the US in terms of what is important to companies in 2009 when selecting their relocation vendors;

1. Global footprint (ie. are you located throughout the world)
2. Total spend (what is the total cost of the supply chain + relocation management)
3. Pricing
4. Funding capabilities (ie. can you pay in advance for us)
5. Stability of the organization
6. References
7. Service Quality

Our organization has continuously battled to make sure we maintain "service quality" as our number one priority. It appears it maybe time for many in the industry, including H&R Consultants and ReloJapan, to re-think their stratey.......