Regarding Shinogabu Chiba's Aug. 31 letter, "Trainees a burden in these times": I, too, think the government's program for foreign trainees is inappropriate, but from a different perspective. I assume that most of the "trainees" are here to earn money and not to be trained.
I am a farmer and this is the fourth year that we've accepted trainees from China. Fortunately, all the young men who have worked with us so far during the hectic season have been cheerful, diligent people. They call me "Okasan." Their work is indispensable to our business.
Though I feel lucky and happy to have them, we are constantly forced to shift our way of working due to immigration policy. The government's bottom line, as I understand it, is to prevent employers from taking advantage of the trainees. But believe me, we would be more than willing to pay them appropriate wages as "workers" so that they could work extra hours. And the trainees seem willing to do this.
I hope the government will revise the trainee program to allow them to legally "work" here. I don't feel that they take jobs away from Japan's residents, at least in the agricultural field. We turned to trainees because there have been fewer and fewer workers applying to us for seasonal work.
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