So I live in Japan, moved here recently in a engineer/ sp in humanities visa. The Visa is 3 years long. The office I am in sort of changed the job description when I came here, so I’m dissatisfied with the work. So I am thinking about changing company. The contract they brought me was for ‘出向社員’ which means like a temporary staff transfer or something. Anyways so If i got a job elsewhere, can the company withhold me from going there? Do they have that authority?
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No. But you have to get a new visa with the next company.
Oh and to add: you cannot work for the new company until you have the new visa. Anything else is against the law and some companies don’t know and only you will be retaliated for it – e.g. maybe you can’t get a permanent visa if you try later.
>Anyways so If i got a job elsewhere, can the company withhold me from going there? Do they have that authority?
No. Your status of residence is yours and not tied to them (with few exceptions). You are obligated to inform immigration of your change of circumstances within two weeks. So if you quit and you haven’t got a new job lined up you’d need to inform immigration within two weeks of quitting and then again within two weeks of starting the new job.
If the new job is of the same type of work as your previous job then your current status of residence will cover it and you’re fine. If it’s a new general type of work (eg going from English teacher to IT worker) then you’d need to request a change of status from immigration and you’d not be allowed to begin the new job until it’s been approved.