Apan Trainee News Today

A government panel has compiled a final report on a new system to replace Japan's controversial trainee program for foreigners, featuring improved rights protection with increased flexibility for workplace changes and tougher oversights.

Around a quarter of responding female foreign trainees in Japan say they were told to quit their job and return to their home country if they become pregnant, a survey by the Immigration Services Agency of Japan says.

A group of Vietnamese technical interns whose former employer failed to pay them a total of 27 million yen ($194,000) for overtime expose the illegally long hours they were made to work and call for the money to be handed over at a press conference.

The Japanese government revokes the permit of an intermediate organization that introduces foreign trainees to host companies after it failed to prevent the physical abuse of a Vietnamese man by his Japanese co-workers at a construction firm.

The confirmation of the first case of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus in Japan rekindles anxiety among businesses over an economic downturn.