On May 18, 2016 JITCO announced Seminar and a new circular on JITCO’s website regarding a seminar for strengthening the management of Vietnamese technical intern trainees (Explanation of Circular) held in April 2016 in Tokyo, as well as on the contents of the circular. Following the seminar, JITCO held a discussions on April 12, 2016 with MOLISA and the Ministry’s Department of Overseas Labour (DOLAB).
JITCO will announce the following details of DOLAB’s interpretation of the circular clarified through the discussion with DOLAB.

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  Regular consultation

1. Number of Vietnamese Sending Organizations cooperating with one Japanese Supervising Organization

a. *Supervising organizations accepting less than 100 technical intern trainees per year can contract with not more than 3 organizations.
*Supervising organizations accepting 100-199 people per year can contract with not more than 5 organizations.
*Supervising organizations accepting 100-199 people per year can contract with not more than 5 organizations.
*Supervising organizations accepting 200 people or more per year can contract with an unlimited number of Vietnamese sending organizations.

b. The number of technical intern trainees accepted each year is counted from 1st January to 31st December of the previous solar calendar year before the date of consideration.

c. In related to the number of contracts with sending organizations for supervising organizations, in case the cooperation between Japanese supervising organizations and Vietnamese sending organizations does not follow the regulations in point, the supervising organizations should rearrange their cooperation in order to be in conformity with the above regulations by 1st October, 2016.
If they cancel the contract with any sending organization, they shall inform the DOLAB. The sending organization referred below in the number 2 is not counted on the number of sending organizations making a contract with one supervising organization.

d. If the supervising organization which makes contracts with 3 or 5 sending organizations, intends to accept more technical intern trainees and, thus, need to make contracts with more sending organizations, they shall inform the DOLAB about their plan (number of technical intern trainees to be accepted, time of accepting and implementing organizations). The DOLAB will consider approving the number of sending organizations to make contracts with a supervising organization with its plan.

2. Management of Vietnamese technical intern trainees in Japan when the supervising organization and sending organization cancel the contract. In case the supervising organization and sending organization cancel the contract and no more technical intern trainees are accepted, they still have to cooperate in managing the technical intern trainees who have been dispatched and are still doing technical intern training in Japan. Rights and responsibility of the two sides in the “Agreement on the dispatching and accepting of technical intern trainees” are still valid until all the Vietnamese technical intern trainees come back to Vietnam.

3. Deduction of housing expenses

a. The deduction of housing expenses (not applicable in the lecture period) from monthly salary of technical intern trainees must not be over 20,000 yen/month. If the technical intern trainees live in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya, the deduction of housing expenses must not be more than 30,000 yen/month.

b. We will consider adjusting the regulations for deducting housing expenses.

4. General insurance
The sending organization will negotiate with the supervising organization and reach an agreement regarding general insurance as follows.

a. The supervising organization supports all or a part of general insurance fee for technical intern trainees, the remaining fee will be borne by technical intern trainees.

b. In case the supervising organization does not support technical intern trainees, but technical intern trainees want to purchase general insurance, the supervising organization will help technical intern trainees to purchase the insurance. The insurance fee will be borne by technical intern trainees.

c. Vietnamese sending organizations are responsible to inform technical intern trainees about general insurance so that they can decide to purchase it or not.

5. Signing of agreement on the dispatching and accepting of Vietnamese technical intern trainees with many sending organizations
In order to prevent unfair competition among sending organizations which can result in technical intern trainees’ benefit loss, if the Japanese supervising organization signs a contract with a number of Vietnamese sending organizations, the conditions of the agreement signed with the later sending organization must not be lower than the conditions of the agreement signed with the precedent sending organization.

6. The above content will be implemented from April 12, 2016.
The conditions relating to benefits of technical intern trainees which entered Japan before 12th April 2016 are not affected by these above regulations.
However, it is welcomed to adjust the benefits of technical intern trainees who entered Japan before April 12, 2016, if their benefits are lower than the above conditions.

Inquiries to the Vietnamese side:

Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Japan, Labor Office (Japanese language available)
(Japanese language available)
Address: 2F Wact Yoyogi Uehara Bldg. 10-4, Motoyoyogi-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 151-0062
TEL 03-3466-4324
E-mail: banqlldnhatban@gmail.com