Visa sponsorship

Hello,

I have a few questions regarding visa sponsorship, and hopefully this will help for any others searching for this question in the future. I have found posts regarding this subject, but I am still uncertain about this.

I am a student in Japan who is applying for jobs (with one potentially willing to hire me). Some fellow students and I are searching on job websites such as the gaijinpot and we keep coming across job postings that specifically require a valid working visa already or that they do not offer visa sponsorships. Anyways, this has involved a lot of yelling at the computer screen and searching to no avail for answers to this specific situation.

So, here's goes with the questions...

Specifically, what is the visa sponsorship needed for?
-Certain wordings of various sources make the term "sponsorship" cloudy, in my opinion. I am fully aware that my school was my sponsor for my COE and my student visa. I am assuming that if I want to work after graduating, I need the "sponsor" just to change to a work visa? Is the "sponsor" required for renewing the visa (this ties into the question below)? It's weird because a lot of people are saying get an easy sponsorship for the working visa and then change jobs (hopefully within a reasonable amount of time and within the same scope). Then, from that point on, your new company becomes your sponsor?

Why do some of those jobs not offer visa sponsorships?
-I understand why part-time jobs do not offer them. However, I have seen some offers for full-time jobs that do not offer them. Either they do not list that they offer sponsorships, specifically state that they do not, or require a valid working visa already. The former of the three does not eliminate the possibility of a sponsorship, but having it in writing does help the ease of mind. As I asked in the above question, assuming that "sponsorship" falls under this scope, would these companies not help you with the renewal of a visa?

What does it take/cost a company to sponsor you?
-I feel like this may go along with the above question. From what I've gathered, nothing other than the 4000 yen application fee (in the case of a "change of status") and maybe lawyer fees if they choose to go that route. Because honestly, what is there about a visa sponsorship that would prevent a company from wanting to be your sponsor? The only reasons I could imagine are A) problems with sponsored foreigners in the past (either by the foreigners themselves or the company to the foreigners); B) something shady the company is trying to hide because they have to give certain records to immigration (my overthinking, please bear with it); or C) Too much work.

If you are hired by a company, are they automatically your sponsor (provided that they are legally capable of being one in immigration's eyes)?
-This ties into the questions above, and I apologize if this sounds repetitive.
-This questions is regarding both A) a brand new working visa (changing a current one or from overseas); and B) someone with a working visa that needs to be renewed.


Thank you for bearing with this long-winded post and thank you in advance for any answers you may provide me.

When they say visa sponsorship for a work visa (or resident status), they mean the employer.

When you applied for the student visa, the school was the sponsor for that. So for a work visa, it is the employer, who wants you in Japan so that you can work for them.
And yes if you go to another employer (provided the work you do falls under the same category) you report the change to immigration, and the next time you need to renew your resident status, you get the new employer to assist you (by submitting the employment contract with salary info., etc.).

If an employer says they are not sponsoring any visa, that means they … just don’t want to do it, be it for time reason (they want someone already in Japan working at an employer in a similar field, so that you can start right away without waiting for the visa to be granted), experience reason, or whatsoever.
Once you start working for them, and it comes to time for renewing, then if they want you to continue to work, they will help you with renewal.

It means some waiting time for them. Cost would not be much, unless they use an immigration lawyer. Recently some work visas (if you are starting completely new) take something in the range of 3 months or so, so they don’t want to go through the waiting time and the hassle.