Is Japan A Promised Land for Korean Java Engineers?

More Java-savvy Korean engineers are viewing Japan as a place for future employment. It all started in 2000, when former prime minister Yoshiro Mori and former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung agreed on a basic framework for the South Korea-Japan IT Cooperation Initiative.

MORE JAVA-SAVVY KOREAN engineers are viewing Japan as a place for future employment. It all started in 2000, when former prime minister Yoshiro Mori and former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung agreed on a basic framework for the South Korea-Japan IT Cooperation Initiative.

South Korea is seen as a broadband giant, but its market is still too small to absorb all of the country's young and ambitious engineers, industry sources say. According to these sources, the Korean IT market is still one-seventeenth the size of Japan's. At the same time, Japan is committed to hosting more foreign engineers under its e-Japan project.

The South Korean government has announced plans to send one-fourth of the country's IT engineers -- about 10,000 people with computer engineering degrees or their equivalent -- to Japan by 2006. The plan goes like this: Selected trainees will receive eight months of intensive training in technology and Japanese language in several Korean universities; after completing the courses, they will be interviewed by Japanese firms with the help of Japanese matchmakers; those who are selected will then be contracted to the matchmakers and outsourced to firms in Japan.

Right now, Japan Asia Solution Networks (Jasnet) is the sole matchmaker in the field, although it has help from IT temp agency Fuji Profecio, an investor in Jasnet. Other investors in Jasnet include Japanese IT firms and industry associations.

"Korean IT education is more advanced than its Japanese counterpart," says Akira Suwama at Jasnet. In Japan, engineers working in Java technology often have liberal-arts backgrounds with, perhaps, two-year job-training certificates. In South Korea, however, having a computer engineering degree is almost a prerequisite. And while India is by far a larger source of engineers, Indian engineers tend to seek employment in English-speaking markets; Koreans are much more able to adapt to Japan, perhaps because of linguistic similarities, Suwama adds.

Korean engineers also offer cost advantages. "Korean Java engineers are perhaps 20 percent cheaper than the Japanese," says Takashi Itsumoto at Fuji Profecio. According to the company's Web site, the average Korean engineer makes JPY450,000 a month. What's more important, he adds, is the image that Koreans are reliable and willing to make long-term commitments, unlike Japanese youngsters, who tend to hop from job to job. Japanese firms that directly hire Korean engineers may get bogged down in difficulties and the hassles of renewing one-year visas, Suwama says. That's where the training and the matchmakers come in.

The first round of training started in April 2001 and produced 335 trainees -- 230 of those trainees have found jobs in Japan. The second eight-month training session started last July, this time focusing solely on Java technology. Another 300 trainees are finishing their courses and preparing to find work in Japan.

The number of participating Korean engineers is still quite small, however. Itsumoto suspects that the shortage of Java-savvy engineers in Japan may have been overstated. "The market doesn't seem to have last year's momentum," he says. Despite the Korean government's bullish plan, the struggling economy at home may make it harder for Japan to hire more engineers -- be they Japanese or Korean.

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