2021 Volume 10 Issue 1 Pages 223-229
This paper examines companies’ recognitions and interpretations of foreign employees working as regular employment in Japan. In previous studies, foreign workers have been understood in the polarized concept of highly skilled human resources who are the complementary labor force of the Japanese or peripheral workers who can fill the shortage of Japanese workers. However, the number of middle-skilled foreign workers with similar working conditions and skills as the Japanese has been increasing in recent years. This paper empirically clarifies what kind of recognitions and interpretations the Japanese personnel managers have for these foreign workers. An interview survey of 10 Japanese companies revealed that the logic of hiring foreigners is explained mainly from two perspectives: nationality and ability. Each factor is the logic of hiring foreigners in the same company, which means that foreigners are expected to have diversity different from that of Japanese workers, and at the same time, they are expected to behave in the same way as Japanese workers. These results suggest the dilemma for the human resources department of trying to hire new diversified employees while maintaining consistency in the same way as before.
