Spouse visa

Hi.

My husband is American, and we got his spouse visa a few months ago. He's been looking for a job and now got unhappy news. The news was very surprising for me, and I still can't get it's true or not. (By the way, I've done all paper works for his visa so I thought I knew a lot about those things.)

He had interviewed for a job today and was informed that he can't work more than 20 hours a month(!) because he has spouse visa. What I had understood was people who have spouce visa can work with no limitation ( just like Japanese citizen, so I was really shocked. I really hope the interviewer misunderstood or confused with other visa.

If anybody knows about this, please let me know.

A regular spouse visa allows the holder to engage in any profession without work hour limitations.

I suspect that the interviewer must confuse the "spouse visa" (spouse of a Japanese national) with a "dependent visa" (spouse of a foreign resident in Japan). The latter does not allow paid activities unless you get special permission from the immigration office to work up to 20 hours per week.

Thank you, Uji!

Yes, that's what I had understood till my husband had an interview this Saturday. My guess now is they were confused with `dependent visa` (because there are lots of spouses of foreign resident working at the school) as you said, maybe this is the way of their saying `No, we are not interested in hiring your husband.` or maybe they don't want to cover his health insurance and penssion.

Anyway, I'll aks them about this matter again because they said my husband can't work more than 20 hours a week at any place.

If your husband has a spouse visa, then he can work any job, any hours. I have a spousal visa through my wife and I certainly work more than 20 hours a week.

From what I have been told, companies must provide benefits for those employees working 30+ hours a week. So I don't think they are just trying to avoid paying benefits.

However, I don't like to assume the worst in people, so they might have just misunderstood the situation.

Thank you Al!

I also got the same answer as yours from a Japanese wife who is married to a foreigner.

I don't want to suspect they were lying either. The interview itself was very good, and they understand our situation very much. I really hope they were just confused with other visa.

I have sent an email to the interviewer about this matter. If we don't hear from them, that proves they were just lying and there's no worth to work for them.