from Hacker News

Unbearable hours, threats of being fired: The abuse of migrant interns in Japan

by tropicalfruit on 5/10/24, 12:14 PM with 62 comments

  • by hollywood_court on 5/10/24, 2:18 PM

    I saw this kind of behavior when I worked for a Korean company here in the US.

    They treated us like animals. I thought I had seen the worst working conditions possible during my time in Haiti.

    But the two years I spent working for the Koreans showed me that I lacked a great deal of perspective regarding just how poorly employees can be treated.

    And they treated their visiting interns even worse. Students would fly in from Korea and rotate in/out every six months. Those kids were put through the wringer.

  • by i5heu on 5/10/24, 2:31 PM

    Not so funny for Japan considering that immigration is the only way they can handle their rapidly aging population.

    I hope they can get their decade old humanoid robot research fast enough to production, otherwise i really don't see how they can provide for their population while having to care for 35% to 40% of the population that is over 64.

    And since it does not look like it, the realization that migrants are not sub humans and actually quite value will hit hard.

  • by alephnerd on 5/10/24, 2:53 PM

    An indie Japanese-Vietnamese movie recently came out called "Along the Sea" giving a slice of life view of this [0]

    I recommend watching it sometime.

    [0] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qU2xaRBeFiU&embeds_referring_e...

  • by savolai on 5/10/24, 2:49 PM