A new business to help foreign workers settle into living in Japan

Finding the right place to live might be one of the biggest challenges foreigners face when they move to Japan. Some arrive in Japan without having a clear sense of the country’s housing situation, and have a hard time finding a place to live due to their lack of Japanese language skills. Sometimes they are forced to make painful compromises and end up living in places they are not really satisfied with.

Bearing this situation in mind, “World Wide Support” was founded on April 1. With the goal of improving living conditions for foreign workers, this new company is a joint venture of three companies: Japan Best Rescue System, a home emergency service agency; Othello Financial Service, a design planning and consulting agency for insurance companies and cooperatives; and ALLROUND, a web and app development company.

They are intending to help foreigners find places to live, aid them in emergencies, and run an app to give useful tips about Japanese culture and etiquette. For example, they liaise between foreigners and real estate agencies/landlords, or between the foreigners’ employers and real estate agencies/landlords to ease communication and ensure that moving into housing proceeds smoothly. When foreigners face home emergencies such as being locked out of the house or having loose faucets, World Wide Support will send a technician to deal with the trouble. Moreover, the company is developing a life support app to stream useful videos about garbage disposal, Japanese culture and etiquette to help foreigners understand sometimes ambiguous Japanese rules.

While Japan is expecting an influx of foreign workers with the implementation of the new immigration control law in April, it is important to establish a support system to help foreigners settle down or offer them help in emergency situations. Therefore, these new services offered by World Wide Support will be the first step towards helping foreign workers and other related parties.

［Web site］World Wide Support