Mr Puranik, 45, joined the initial wave of Indian tech workers who went to Japan in the early 2000s. He became a Japanese citizen and in 2019 won elected office in Tokyo, a first for anyone from India. This year, he was hired as the principal of a public school.
As it rapidly ages, Japan desperately needs more workers to fuel the world’s third-largest economy and plug gaps in everything from farming and factory work to elder care and nursing. Bending to this reality, the country has eased strict limits on immigration in hopes of attracting hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, most notably through a landmark expansion of work visa rules approved in 2018.
India produces a vast pool of 1.5 million engineering graduates each year who could help Japan play digital catch-up. When Indian workers do answer the call, many speak admiringly of the cleanliness and safety of Japanese cities, and say their salaries allow them to live comfortably, if not lavishly. Those who have studied Japanese language and culture can be effusive in their praise.
Ms Nirmal Jain, an Indian educator, said she founded the Indian International School in Japan in 2004 for children who would not thrive in Japan’s one-size-fits-all public education system. The school now has 1,400 students on two campuses and is building a new, larger facility in Tokyo. “They want things in a particular order; they want case studies and past experience,” Mr Puranik said of some Japanese managers. “IT doesn’t work like that. There is no past experience. We have to reinvent ourselves every day.”Still, Japanese companies have made decisive moves in recent years to tap into the pool of Indian engineering graduates, either by bringing them to Japan or employing them in India.
Big-name US tech companies have recruited aggressively in India, offering immigrant-friendly work environments, surging compensation packages and sky’s-the-limit career advancement opportunities. Google, Twitter, Microsoft and Adobe have all had Indian-born CEOs.
Nah... Japan needs cheap labours
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