<ARTICLES>Japaneseness in the Labor Market for Locally Employed Workers: The New Transnational Employment System in Japanese Corporations

The offshoring by Japanese corporations triggered the transnational flow of Japanese workers to Asian countries in the 1990s. In the first stage, these corporations relocated company-specific expatriates through the internal labor market. Later, they developed the transnational labor market for “Japanese locally employed workers”, who moved individually and were hired directly by Japanese corporations in the destination countries. Does this transnational labor market deconstruct the boundary of nation-states and release migrant workers from national norms of working? This paper examines the national/transnational framework of employment based on an empirical study of Japanese locally employed workers in Shanghai since the 2000s. First, the paper elucidates the historical background to the development of this transnational labor market. Responding to the offshoring of Japanese corporations, staffing agencies built the external labor market outside of Japan. If the corporations aimed to reduce labor costs and localize their management, they should have employed local workers or at least long-term Japanese residents. The expansion of the transnational labor market, however, introduced short-term Japanese migrants who are unfamiliar with the local language and culture. Second, the paper explains the gap to indicate the reason that the Japanese transnational corporations employed such short-term Japanese migrant workers. Compared to the company-specific expatriates who internalize specific skills and customs in each company, the locally employed workers are expected to be familiar with the national norms and customary ways of working. The labor market was expanded transnationally in the space but functions to maintain the national working environment outside Japan. This paper concludes that the transnational labor market for locally employed workers maintains national practices of working and suggests that the transnational flow of workers probably reinforces the boundary of nation-states.