The situation was so difficult that these men started escaping from their employers, preferring to live as illegal workers that to them was a better life, says Kawakami. Ippei Torii, a trade unionist, says the demand for cheap labor is so high today that companies have resorted to bribing senior politicians to get workers in by any method. Rather than ask questions about the situation of trainees, he says, businesses are urging longer trainee visas. According to the Justice Ministry, 5.27 million foreigners entered Japan last year and 1.6 million are officially registered as living in the country. The ministry estimates that there are 280,000 illegal workers in Japan, but activists say the number could be double that.
Japanese workers shun small companies because of poor working conditions and low pay.
A report by the United Nations last year pointed out that Japan will need about 600,000 immigrants each year over the next 50 years to maintain its working population at its 1995 size. A poll by the Cabinet Office conducted in November showed that 49.4 respondents do not condone the presence of illegal foreign workers. Many of the 3,000 respondents said they were worried about an increase in unemployment and the crime rate from the foreign population - which critics call unfair discrimination. Analysts say Tokyo urgently needs to develop a foreign worker policy. Jiro Nakamura, professor of economics at Tokyo Metropolitan University, says that workers from developing countries will continue to come because they can find jobs in Japan.