Hi there,
I am on Working Holiday Visa since January and signed a independant contractor agreement with a… **recruitment company**. This is a small company, we are 5, all independant contractors, even the researchers (you might see it coming). This is actually a sister company from a Wealth Management company, the CEO are not that implicated, they just read numbers and lines on excel sheet.
You already have read the title, and with a small presentation you can see it coming.
I have **no fix salary, only commissions.** This is a high risk/high reward situation. But I was agreed with that. I got clients and candidates who are about to get recruited. However I need money to pay my bills, and they are only sending draws (4 times in total) from what I will earn later. And the amount is systematically under 200.000JPY. The comission I will make are above 3M JPY. (That’s not that good if I compared with my salary in France, where I worked far less for better results. The market in Tokyo is very competitive and I need maybe 1 more year to build a good network and, personal branding.
As a recruitment professional, I think that they will never suceed anything because they don’t give fix salary even for researchers. We have 2 researchers who actually got a part-time jobs, but don’t care about this company. And I tried everything to tell them how to improve the business model, the communication, the tools to use. Even I am the most experimented in recruitment in their company, they don’t want to hear anything.
Because the conditions are too risky, the CEOs and I don’t speak the same language (finance advisor vs recruitment professional) I decided to see what other companies can offers me. I found a very good headhunting company : consultants are here since 10 years in average. When I went to my final interwiew with the CEO from this small company he told me that **my contract is probably illegal**. Because I am on working holiday, I could not be an independent contractor and basically, the very small amount they gave me are insufficient to make me stay on Japan. **My chances to have a working visa are currently 0**.
I am not very sure about that since there is a lot of online teacher who are on working holiday right?
Anyway, on Monday I will contact the Labour Service, because I need advices about that. I would like to know if it is possible for me to tear those mf out money. I mean, when I ask them for draws, I have no other solutions to pay my rent. They alway tell me that, they invested a lot of money in this sister company. But they don’t see that I invested far more to work this them. I basically pay to work. This situation is stressful, and I am not enjoying my life in Japan.
I don’t know if I can engage a legal dispute, but if I can win I will do it. I don’t care about reputation I just want to go home without debts. I suffered enough.
If anyone I has some advices or wants to share they experience I will be glad to hear you out.
Thank you for reading me.
1 comment
Sorry, in what strange world did you think a working holiday visa would lead to regular employment? That is the antithesis of that visa which is to give temporary rich laborers who want to experience the country.
I’m not quite sure where you get the idea you have no fixed salary from. Noone in Japan works exclusively on commission, everyone has a fixed (allbeit potentially insufficient) salary that they work for with secondary bonuses if available.
Many inept english speaking foreigners end up as english employees in a variety of employment opporutunities, but it is seldom a long term solution unless they get married to a local, and many better paying institutions won’t even look at those half year migrants. They tend to be employed by exploitative corporations relying on the fact the employee comes from a rich country and couldn’t be arsed to figure out their rights in Japan.
And unfortunately it sounds like you got scammed by a fly by night black company designed to get uneducated and ignorant rich foreigners to commit to a working holiday visa and work for them without them providing half if that of the benefits they are required to. Ever heard of getting blood from a stone? Welcome to your labor board conversation.