Employment insurance -> NHI problems?

Hi everyone, I did a search and couldn't find anything related to this but please excuse me if this question has already been answered elsewhere.

I currently hold a ''Specialist in Humanities/International Services'' one year visa that will expire in August 2010.

I quit my company that gave me this visa last week (end of Feb), and while I've read here that I am still able to stay in Japan till the end of my visa term, the HR manager at my former company has nevertheless offered to delay reporting my resignation to immigration until May-ish (to give me some time to job hunt).

However, now that I've quit, I am no longer part of the company's employee insurance scheme, and was planning to head to the city ward to sign up to switch to NHI. But on the company's form of insurance disqualification (soushitsu-shoumeisho) it states: Resigned on 2/28.

If I bring this to the city ward for the NHI, does that mean they would now know that I am no longer employed, and would they contact my former company to confirm this? And now that I only have 5 months left on my visa, would I even be eligible for NHI?

I know that the easiest thing to do is just ask my HR manager to go ahead and report my resignation, but I guess there's just a paranoia in me that some immigration official having a bad day would show up and kick me out of the country...lol.

My company and I parted on good terms, hence the HR manager's kind offer to keep the resignation under wraps for me as a precaution, yet I'd hate to ''out'' him by applying for the NHI and getting him in trouble.

Anyway, sorry for the long-winded message!

You mean "employer's health insurance scheme," not "employment insurance," right?

What are you planning to do now? If you are going to stay in Japan and look for another job/employer, I think you should go ahead to your city hall and report the employment status change (to Alien Registration section) and sign up for the NHI. If you are planning to leave soon, then, well.

If you go to the city hall and sign up for NHI, and IF they ask you about your job, you just tell them you are looking for another employer, which you hope will find soon.

Immigration and city hall/social insurance/alien registration are separate offices, so they do not talk to each other closely.

I am surprised that the HR manager is saying that he is going to delay "reporting" your resignation. Normally former employers do not bother to report resignations, unless the employer and the employee had some trouble and the employer want you to get kicked out (sorry for speaking very plainly). It's OK to be in Japan on a remaining visa even after the circumstances have changed, at least for a few months anyway. Some people, also on this forum, claim that a visa is yours until it expires no matter how long you've got left (which I doubt), but a months' time to look for another job should be fine. (Once you've lost your employer and do not find another, you just cannot renew it.)

Please look at a similar thread (and a few more quoted on this thread too:
http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+60164

OP here, thank you very much for your reply AK!

And yes, I meant the ''employer's health insurance scheme'' not employment insurance, thanks for the correction hehe.

Thank you for those additional threads! I actually have read through them awhile back, thus gathering that quitting does not equal a revocation of my visa.

I do plan to job hunt from now on, but am not confident I can find an offer within a month or so...yeah, I know I probably should've thought of that before quitting.

Well to not bore you with the details, in short, I'm (somewhat a) new graduate, and was on a part-time contract with this company and they offered me a full-time position which I turned down in order to apply to shinsotsu positions that require no prior full-time experience. I wanted to stay as a part-time and do shuukatsu at the same time, but they said, for reasons I'm unsure of, that a part-timer was not in their budget and told me by the end of Feb, it's take the full position or nothing. I chose to quit and try my luck at shuukatsu. Most shuukatsu results typically come out by May-June, hence my HR manager's offer to ''delay the report'' till then.

I know it's best to just come clean as you said and file my resignation, but as I said, I would be grateful to keep OFF their radar till May-ish after I've heard back from most companies. However, the NHI application would be the indication, hence my original question.

And while you said most employers don't report the resignation, my HR manager was cool with the visa issue, but some guy from the finance department was adamant that ''it's a law to report it immediately!'' and was just very abhorred by the idea of delaying the report and wanted nothing to do with it.

I'm quite sure there was no bad blood between me or any part of the company, but it just seemed like the finance dude was merely sticking to the rules, which I don't blame him for at all.

Anyway, thank you so much for your feedback. I think I may just apply for NHI and hope they don't ask me too many questions!

I know it's late to say this, but that was a missed opportunity with the previous employer - I mean, normally companies do not sponsor visa for part-timers in the first place, and the fact that they offered a full-time position instead of a part-time meant that they really liked you. Asking to remain on a part-time basis so that you could look for something else was asking a bit too much, in my humble opinion.

Well anyway, my best estimate remains that (1) even if you enrolled in NHI, Immigration would not find out immediately from them, and (2) if the former employer is "willing to wait" until May or so to report, which they somehow feel they have to, at least you have until June or so to be able to still say that you are looking for a job�@)

I know it's late to say this, but that was a missed opportunity with the previous employer - I mean, normally companies do not sponsor visa for part-timers in the first place, and the fact that they offered a full-time position instead of a part-time meant that they really liked you. Asking to remain on a part-time basis so that you could look for something else was asking a bit too much, in my humble opinion.

I agree with AK, it probably would have been wise to take the position at least until your visa gets renewed, which would have given you far more time to job hunt. Also, doesn't a work visa necessitate that you have a full time position, and wouldn't switching to a part time position violate the terms of your visa?

Hi everyone, OP here. Thanks again for the replies!

I definitely see the sense in both your opinions that taking up the offer would've been the wiser move. I've been getting that a lot (especially from my parents) and tbh, I don't even know if I made the right decision, but I suppose staying in the country no longer is my first priority (something I will probably come to regret lol..) Well a little too late for regrets I suppose.

Actually I probably should have mentioned that I was introduced to this company through my parents' friend, so I got in through connection, which was why they agreed to sponsor my visa despite only being a part-timer. And no, I don't think I've violated any terms of my visa, as when I applied for it, the form from my company explicitly stated I was being hired as a part-time and I still got the visa.

But anyway, thank so much you for your honest comments! Will be heading to the ward office sometime soon and may post some feedback after! Thanks again! :)

If you go to the city office and ask to join the NHI, they will ask you to pay from the day you arrived in Japan. In order to prevent that you need to tell them that you had an employment insurance (shakai hoken) until recently.
The usual thing is to bring a document from your former employee that states that your shakai hoken has been cancelled but if you don't have that the person at the city office will call your former employer and ask them when your insurance ended.

AK, for what it's worth, I left Japan for 7 months while still on a working visa, so when I arrived back in Japan it would have been very obvious to Immigration that I was not still employed by a Japanese company. Nevertheless, they let me back in on the same visa without blinking an eyelid.

Unless regulations have changed a lot in the last few years, the visa holder being unemployed for several months does not seem to bother Immigration a lot.

Remember all the Nova teachers who lost their jobs, many not finding work for several months? I never heard of a single one having trouble with Immigration over that, and I followed the situation closely.

I don't know what will happen if Chloe's employers "report" her to Immigration (unnecessarily in my opinion), but I doubt that they will do anything at all, particularly if it is clear that she is looking for work.

Foreigners on working visas are entitled to claim unemployment insurance if they have been paying into it, so it really doesn't seem like Immigration worries about several months' unemployment.

Chloe, your ward office is not going to do any kind of reporting to Immigration either if you apply for NHI. As AK says those authorities don't really communicate with each other.

Sira,

Yes, I do recall your case :) It's just that... there was another thread where the original poster said he just got a three-year work-permitting visa, and quit only after a few months. So I am just being on the careful side - a few months, maybe several months is fine, but I can't say that it's simply "yours to keep" even after you've left your job, no matter how long you've got left on it. That's how, not being any immigraiton official, I tend to view (and state) things here :) Underlying circumstances behind your visa status change, and the visa that came with the original circumstances "can" change as well. I really feel it unusual that Chloe's employer is going to report it, though :(

When I left for 7 months, I had only been on my new 3-year working visa for several months, so a very similar situation- the difference perhaps being that it was not my first working visa. Having said that, I agree that it is better to find a new job as soon as possible.

When I did that though (back in 2001), there weren't a lot of internet sites giving Japanese visa information, so I didn't really give it a thought, let alone do research on it. I just assumed they would let me in as my visa was still valid, and it would have been a huge shock if they hadn't! Thankfully they did