高齢化する転換期の労働社会と移民労働者

—建設分野における日越間の越境的制度構築を事例に—

抄録

This paper examines the effects of the fundamental change in Japan’s immigration policy on migrant workers based on a case study of the expanding Technical Intern Training Program in the construction industry by focusing on the growing relationship between Japan and Vietnam. An increase in the number of trainees in occupations related to construction work since 2011 has led to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism implementing a substantial guest worker program for trainees who have completed the training program named “Urgent Measures Concerning the Utilization of Foreign Human Resources in the Field of Construction” in 2015. This has been done ostensibly to meet the labor demand for facilities for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. The long-term purpose of the program, however, is to create a transnational labor pool of skilled workers in construction. Field research was conducted in Japan in 2015 and in Vietnam in 2016 to explore the motives behind and roles played by multiple actors involved in creating a new industrial structure, such as supervising organizations, accepting employers, and dispatched instructors to training centers of sending organizations. The analysis showed that despite the passive attitude of many actors toward expanding acceptance, a few model cases of positive promotion for training and recruiting foreign workers have a significant implication on the transformation of the construction labor market in the context of aging society in transition.