Why Moving to Japan and South Korea May Become More Attractive in the Post-COVID World

As the coronavirus epidemic continues to spread around the world, moving abroad to improve career prospects may be the last thing that many people are thinking about. But individual careers do not take a break just because parts of the world economy are temporarily shut down to help suppress the further spreading of COVID-19. Just as it was before the emergence of COVID, moving to a different country for work may be extremely helpful for career development. In particular, in the post-COVID world, Japan and South Korea may be two locations that prospective job seekers should examine.

In a world battered economically by the coronavirus, Japan and South Korea have emerged as two countries where relative economic stability prevailed. Unemployment in Japan, for instance, remains below 3% even as American and European unemployment rates have shot into the double digits. Continued labor shortages, both skilled and unskilled, will become more acute as the reality of aging and low birth rate trump the lower demand for workers in the years to come. The relative ease with which job seekers can find employment in Japan and South Korea contrasts greatly with many other locales around the world.

That relative strength of the Japanese and South Korean economies are based on the continued vibrancy of the domestic economy. While some industries, especially in the dining and hospitality sectors, as in other countries, suffered, relatively loose restrictions on movements and business closures ensured the quicker return of a greater semblance of normalcy in daily economic activities than elsewhere. Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that the supermarkets, shopping streets, and even malls are already seeing their regular number of customers, despite continued government recommendation on social distancing.

While what some would consider a "premature" return to normalcy, before the eradication of COVID, to be a worrying trend, it does present a foreign resident with precious opportunity to see how normal lives can still be led in an era of crisis. The past months have seen political protests in the US and Hong Kong, and new surges of infections in the US, Beijing, Singapore, Brazil, India, and parts of Africa. In comparison, Japan and South Korea can almost be described as an oasis of calm, little disturbed by anxiety-inducing events elsewhere. 

Indeed, for those look for stability both in their personal careers and the overall living environment, the world offers few better choices than Japan and South Korea. Admittedly, the process for even foreign permanent residents to go back home has been made difficult by the lack of flights and policies to temporarily close borders, but foreign residents already inside have not been discriminated in terms of policies. Many have not only received automatic extensions on their employment and student visas but were also included in government schemes to cushion the epidemic's blows on the economy, whether it be stimulus payments or consumption vouchers.

The relatively equal treatment Japan and South Korea furnished their foreign populations especially compares favorably with those of other Asian countries. While COVID-19 was marked by racist eviction of Africans in Guangzhou and the exceptionally high infection rate for migrant workers in Singapore, Japan and South Korea have so far not seen events that would detrimentally affect migrants more than other members of the general public. The relative egalitarianism the two countries have shown bodes particularly well in a time when both are seeing an increasing number of foreign migrants as well as mixed-race children born from international marriages.

This is not to say that moving to Japan and South Korea will be easy, even after the complete eradication of COVID-19 and any of its new mutations that threaten a second wave. Governments around the world are understandably wary of accepting people coming from countries that have shown themselves to be largely incapable of suppressing the virus. And many companies will, for the time being, focus on shoring up the core domestic markets of their products and services, rather than venture out to projects involving foreign markets, something that new foreign residents would be best placed to assist.

But in the long term, the attraction of Japan and South Korea for international migrants will only grow, partly because of the two countries' comparatively better handling of COVID-19, both at the economic and social fronts. And because of their coming out of the health crisis relatively unscathed, they will be in a better position to take advantage of the economic rebound that that will undoubtedly come. Armed with a more tolerant attitude toward foreign residents, the two countries should be considered the preferred destinations for foreigners seeking a new place to work and live.