Hi everyone!
I am a second-generation Japanese-American, I am living in America and I currently have citizenship in both America and Japan. (Yes, I’m aware that Japan does not currently allow dual citizenship for adults. [This comment does a wonderful job of explaining how this is possible](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/8iczg8/renewing_japanese_passport_as_a_dualcitizen/dyriqmp/).) I was born and raised in America for my entire life, but I am completely bilingual and I’m able to read/speak/write the language with no problem at all. I have gone to Japan several times, 90% of my family lives in Japan, and I currently maintain Japanese residency through my grandmother’s address.
In theory, I could go to Japan tomorrow and start living there without a problem — my family is willing to house and support me, and they have encouraged me multiple times to permanently live with them in Japan. Immigration, getting a visa, and things along those lines is not a concern. My concern is whether I am employable there, and if I’d be able to make a living without having to rely on my family for support.
I am 25 years old, and I have graduated from my Masters of Social Work program last May. I am just about to start my career as a licensed social worker, where I will be working as a therapist/clinical social worker under supervision. I am painfully aware that the career path that I have chosen is not necessarily easy to translate into a different country — even if I move to a different state in the US, I would need to get licensed there as well.
Most of the research I’ve done into social work in Japan has basically just told me that it’s very difficult, and it was mostly advice geared towards people who aren’t Japanese and who don’t know the language. I currently don’t have many other marketable skills besides my social work degree and license, and it is my impression that finding a job as a social worker in Japan would be very difficult.
My Japanese cousin thinks that because I am fluent in English, it would be very easy for me to find a job because companies are always looking for people who speak English, but I’m not sure that’s true. Surely I would need another desirable skill to supplement that? Also of note: I’m 100% Japanese, my name is completely Japanese, and I speak Japanese fluently without a foreign accent. I am indistinguishable from a Japanese citizen in Japan at first glance/conversation. Even if Japanese companies were hiring foreigners, I don’t look or sound like a foreigner whatsoever.
Age-wise, I have *just* aged out of the 新卒 generation after university, and it is my understanding that this would make it exponentially more difficult to get hired, but that also might just be for Japanese citizens who graduated from a Japanese university.
My mother believes that the best way for me to get employment in Japan is to be hired by an American company that has presence in Japan and eventually request to be relocated there, but I’m not sure if that’s a thing with social work jobs. This is definitely an avenue for further research to see if this is a viable option.
Things like the JET program have been suggested to me, but I would like to hold onto both citizenships as much as possible and I believe that I would have to renounce my Japanese citizenship to be eligible for the program. I know there are alternatives, and I’m open to those but I have not begun to look into them yet because I’m hoping to exhaust other options first.
Does anyone have any insight about whether it would be possible for me to find long-term employment in Japan? Or have I shot myself in the foot by pursuing a degree/career that isn’t easily transferred internationally? What are things that I should research or look into? Anything that I’m overlooking? I have no real plan to move to Japan yet. I’m still in the research/contemplation phase, trying to see what all of my options are, so I’m also open to employment suggestions that aren’t social work as well. Any move won’t be immediate, so I would also have time to develop and learn more transferable skills as well should I decide to pursue living in Japan more seriously. Social work is also a high burn-out career and I’d like to develop a backup for if I ever want to leave the field; it’d be wonderful if that backup career was more easily transferrable to other countries so I’m open to suggestions on that front as well.
10 comments
I would say even if you stayed in the states you shouldn’t pigeonhole yourself into jobs or a career based on your field of study. You are bilingual, have a masters and citizenship. Get creative.
>Age-wise, I have just aged out of the 新卒 generation after university
There’s not really such a hard age limit (I was hired as an undergrad at 26) and there’s plenty of people who got a masters or were ronin who are around your age and still doing shuukatsu. There’s also places specifically looking for 第二新卒 or the like which, since you’re technically graduated, might be some of your go-tos for searching.
>Things like the JET program have been suggested to me
Do not under any circumstances do this and stop listening to the people dumb enough to suggest you do.
In your circumstances I would start with some of the low hanging fruit such as the [Boston Career Forum](https://careerforum.net/en/event/bos/) where if you do well or are lucky could walk out after two days with a job in Japan. You should look into and can also consider similar career forums in Japan if you’re able to travel to attend; these things could allow you to start to work and support yourself and also try to get a job in Japan if you’re hesitant about throwing away everything and taking the plunge to go to Japan with no job.
Otherwise, in general, there’s nothing stopping you from getting employment, you just may need to look outside of the “easy” inlets like normal recruiting. I say “easy” because though they’re a more simple way of applying, they’re also inherently crowded and full of a lot of people doing the same thing and it can be easy to get lost in the shuffle. There’s lots of opportunities for bilinguals as they’re somewhat desperately needed, and if you’re inclined you could likely find good employment, it would just take work and honestly maybe a few rounds of taking what you can get to get your foot in the door.
Very similar background to you: dual, second-gen, born/raised in US whole life, many relatives in Japan, frequent visits there, etc etc. Though my skills at writing kanji by hand are basically nonexistent lmfao. Though I’m not yet 25.
I’ll be moving to Japan very shortly to start employment at the Tokyo office of an American firm.
I didn’t study what you studied in college and so I can’t speak to whether there would be social work opportunities in Japan, and I’m starting employment fairly soon after undergrad, so perhaps there’s that difference as well. What I can say is that you should look at Boston Career Forum – they have foreign firms advertising positions in Japan. You can also look at other industries other than just social work. I think, especially nowadays, many industries don’t care too much about what you studied, as long as you can prove that you have the skills/critical thinking necessary for the job (perhaps more true for American-origin firms than Japanese ones, but idk). I’ll be doing management consulting, for example, and there wasn’t a specific major requirement or even hard skillset required for the job. I think if you find an opportunity of interest, you’d be able to leverage your social work skills towards almost any job.
And if you want to keep your time in Japan as a “Few years but not permanent” sort of thing, you can always move back to the USA and then raise your value as a social worker/other role/whatever even more by virtue of having worked in Japan and developing broader understanding of other cultures/values, etc (which companies like to hear).
The one thing I’ll say is that you should take a look at financials before committing to a job in Japan. As a dual citizen, you’ll essentially be double-taxed, and although you can avoid paying much federal income tax, the U.S.’s rather stupid decision to tax citizens regardless of where they live mean that you won’t really be able to take advantage of tax-advantaged accounts in Japan like NISA or iDECO. At the same time, I wouldn’t expect a 401k in Japan, and it would be challenging to contribute to U.S.-based tax-advantaged retirement accounts, like a Roth IRA. Japanese salaries are also laughably low, and the declining value of the yen means that your salary “in terms of dollars” goes down the drain.
One of my good friends here in japan is a social worker at the 市役所, one of the reasons he was hired is because he also speaks pretty good English , a rare skill in the inaka. I don’t think you would have any trouble getting that kind of job, if you’d be willing to deal with the stress.
There are tons of NGOs in Japan with an international focus whom I’m sure would love to hire bilingual citizens for key roles. Check some of these guys out to see if there is a group you’d like to be involved with: https://www.janic.org/en/members/
I teach English to social workers at a university in Japan. I can tell you that they receive a very prescribed and precise education suited to Japanese culture. There is a national test that you need to take to become qualified as well. Your credentials overseas would not exempt you from going through the same process Japanese in Japan have to go through to get qualified. If you are willing to go through the hoops,you would be able to work with English speaking residents and would probably be able to secure a job upon receiving credentials. The negative side is that you will be making less than half of what you would in the US and working twice as hard with twice as much scrutiny.
If you can legally live in Japan, my advice is to save up, come over here and then start your own business. Working for someone/anyone here is a dead-end street with salary caps near or even below full time minimum wage in most US states.
Just IMO but salaries & job advancement (if you are a woman) are terrible in Japan compared to the US.
Coming from US working in Japan will be a downgrade. Future only looks worse for Japan a/ depreciation of the Yen & aging population…
You would be a great addition to mental health facilities in japan. We need more bilingual therapist in japan. To be honest youd have more chance at living a simple- good life in japan than america. Im japanese and living in the US cant wait to go back home and advocate for therapy in japan to be a normal thing. Health insurance and awesome everything, so yes to japan. Haha
>Even if Japanese companies were hiring foreigners, I don’t look or sound like a foreigner whatsoever.
Why look at Japanese companies? Foreign companies in Japan are *always* looking for bilingual people! I know that the company I work for often has trouble because job candidates don’t fulfill the English requirement.
We also have quite an amount of ethnically Japanese people who grew up overseas working for us. You really don’t need to look foreign or have a foreign name to get your foot into the door there.
Being bilingual and having citizenship will make you valuable. Having a skill that is in demand would be ideal, but since you don’t have that you will either need to learn new skills or find jobs that use the skills you have.
Using the skills you have:
If you want to be a therapist then you should look into that field in Japan. I’m not sure what type of therapist you want to be, but a lot of foreigners are looking for a therapist and there seem be a limited amount in Japan (partially because it’s not a big demand in Japan). Maybe look for networking with people that do similar work that you would like to do or groups related to this. You could also look at LinkedIn or Indeed Japan to look for jobs in Japanese to find ones that match your interest, then see what the qualifications are.
Gaining new skills:
Some skills that might be good: translation, programming, marketing, sales.