To the Japanese Government and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Japanese government closed the borders and suspended all the visa applications until further notice.

While understandable, especially towards general tourism and short business trips, this decision heavily affects also all those professionals that were offered a full time employment in Japan during the last year, when the possible opening of the borders was in sight before winter.

Many professions require working on site. And even for those that can resort to remote working, in general, it would still represent a problem for those workers that must work in close contact with their colleagues in Japan, especially if there is a large time zone difference.

Some people have already quit their jobs or had to refuse the employment offer. If this situation will continue, more foreigners will reconsider moving to Japan, and more of those already working remotely might decide to quit, considerably affecting all those businesses that rely of foreign workforce, and the workflow of those Japanese companies that are employing remote workers.

The risk of importing new Covid-19 cases and variants can be controlled during the 14-days quarantine. And, the immigration conditions could be as strict as necessary in terms of required vaccination and swab tests. After that, the new immigrated worker can start inserting him/herself into Japanese society and contribute to the Japanese economy with the job he/she already has secured.