When your company’s performance goes down, employees may be encouraged to retire early or be fired, even under unjust conditions. This kind of restructuring strategy may be fair or unfair so one should consult a lawyer, a social insurance consultant, or the Labor Agency.
This time, I’m going to provide general solutions for the problems that you may face when you are fired.

The primary concern is the economic issue. If you were fired, you need to ask the company if they provide anything in exchange for your dismissal such as dismissal allowance-, severance pay, or purchase of your paid leaves. It is, of course, the best to get those proposals in a written document. Secondly, check your documents including your labor contract, your notice of working conditions, work regulations, rules of remuneration, rules of retirement allowance. If you don’t have them, you must ask the company to hand them to you. Companies are obliged to have their employees know their work regulations. On the other hand, when an employee loses the written labor contract, the company does not have the liability to issue it again, but the labor contract is a critical document in case of dismissal, therefore you should ask for re-issuing it.

If you actually ended up retiring, the unemployment insurance will be very important. Those who kept paying their insurance bills for a certain amount of time while they were being employed have the right to receive their insurance when they cannot find their next job. However, you have to have this document called “Risyoku-Hyo”(card indicating separation of working ) which cites the reason for your retirement such as “bankruptcy” or “dismissal” (reasons ascribed to your company), or other “specific reasons” allowing you to receive the insurance. If the reason is “For personal reasons”, you can’t receive the insurance for 3 months after resignation(so called “stand-by period”). Risyoku-Hyo will be published and sent to you by Japanese government’s employment service center(called “Hello Work”) after the company send Hello Work a certificate of their employee’s separation of working. Therefore, when you know you are going to quit your job, you need to confirm what your company will cite on the document for the reason for your retirement before you actually leave.

If you are not convinced that it is acceptable, you should consult an expert on labor issues as soon as possible. When you do, it will be much smoother if you have ready the written labor contract, work regulations, written notice for your dismissal and documents citing dismissal conditions. It is possible to get a mutual agreement about your dismissal conditions in favor of you due to your quick response. In case the company fired you without your consent, you can go through this process called “Mediation” offered by the Labor Agency or file a lawsuit against the company.

If your residence status in Japan is not “permanent resident”, “spouse of a permanent resident”, or “spouse of a Japanese national”, you may lose your work visa status under the condition that you are not working for more than three months. Therefore, if you retired, you should register in a Public Employment Security Office (PESO). When you can prove that you have lost your job because of bankruptcy or dismissal due to the company’s economic conditions, and are currently searching for another job, in most cases you will not lose your visa status.

However, you have to pay attention whether your next job is related to your previous one, for which you received your visa. If your new job is different, you need to go through the procedure to alter your visa status.