Institutionalization of Skills in the Accommodation Industry : The Acceptance of Immigrants in the “Specified Skilled Worker” Category in Japan

In 2019, Japan started accepting immigrants under the new visa status of residence, “Specified Skilled Worker.” The accommodation industry is one of the 14 specified industrial fields recognized for accepting immigrants under the new visa status and is expected to attract many “foreign workers” in the future. This paper critically discusses the institutionalization of skills in the “accommodation” and other related industries, such as “building cleaning.” It specifically focuses on the process of institutionalizing “Specified Skilled Workers,” the contents of examinations, and the actual work specifications in Japanese hotels using the public documents from government and industry organizations and participant observation data. Even in the accommodation industry, which has been regarded as an “unskilled labor” market in the past, skilled labor actually exists. In addition, this industry also requires efficient, reliable, and emotional labor. However, there is a considerable gap between such actual work skills and the “skills” assumed in the test of “Specified Skilled Workers,” and this makes it difficult to institutionalize skills in the accommodation industry as “specific skills.” Out of the 14 “specific skill” sectors, the accommodation and building cleaning sectors can be considered to be the borderline industries that have become “specific skill” categories to resolve the problem of labor shortage in Japan. The modality of skills differs considerably depending on the industry among the 14 fields, and there might be a lot of pitfalls when all of them are considered at once