From Foreign Trainees to Unauthorized Workers: Vietnamese Migrant Workers in Japan

This paper documents the experiences of Vietnamese migrant workers who migrated to Japan as industrial "trainees" during early and mid-2000, some of whom became unauthorized workers. Based on in-depth interviews and survey data collected in Vietnam in 2008 and 2009 from migrants who had returned from Japan, this paper explores the factors that led some workers to slip from legal to irregular work. Our analysis shows how the recruitment process in Vietnam, the implementation of the trainee/intern program in Japan, and migrant networks together create the conditions that encourage or discourage some workers from working in the irregular job sector and overstaying their visas. We situate this argument within the conceptualization of unauthorized labor migration as a structurally embedded phenomenon.