Consultant - Cross-border livelihoods for Kenyan Workers in Japan: Sourcing demand from employers in Japan for Kenyan workers

Company Description

Labor Mobility Partnerships (LaMP) is a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington D.C. with a worldwide mission to dramatically increase the scale and quality of labor mobility, helping workers from lowincome countries access quality jobs across borders and businesses in high-income countries respond to deepening labor shortages. LaMP seeks to lift millions of workers and their families out of poverty and proactively address critical challenges faced by aging societies.

To accomplish its mission, LaMP works with businesses, governments, and workers to address market failures and regulatory barriers that impede safe and effective labor mobility. LaMP forms multi-stakeholder partnerships to solve problems first in “practice” – through a process of discovery, design, piloting and scaling mobility programs – then in “policy” – through advice, advocacy, and replicating tools and technologies.

These efforts collectively lead to scaled labor mobility pathways that are reliable, rights-respecting, and market-compatible, thus financially sustainable. These pathways create value for workers, employers, and economies along the way. With persistent mismatches between the demand for and supply of labor across borders, the market for global mobility solutions will grow exponentially in coming years. Now is the time to get this right and unlock the enormous impact potential of quality, rights-respecting labor mobility at scale.

Project Description & Context

LaMP looks to establish or expand safe and legal mobility pathways to places like Europe, East Asia, and North America. LaMP has received funding to help demonstrate what is possible through a Kenya-Japan migration corridor

Japan – which needs 350,000 foreign workers by 2025 and 11M by 2040 – represents a chance to demonstrate and scale access to rights-respecting cross-border livelihoods, a key solution for high youth unemployment in Kenya. Japan's Technical Intern Trainee Program (TITP) and Specified Skills Worker (SSW) program can offer a safer and higher-paying alternative to Gulf migration.

LaMP has received funding to facilitate a cross-border migration program for 10 Kenyan workers to Japan focusing on trade and service sectors, specifically sectors facing labor shortages or companies located in rural or semi-rural areas experiencing aging populations. Key sectors include: hospitality, construction, manufacturing, agriculture, mechanics, transportation, elderly care. These sectors have been identified as acute shortage sectors, though other sectors can also be explored depending on employer demand. LaMP is flexible in exploring various migration pathways (TITP, SSW, Gijinkoku) but are prioritizing TITP as the threshold for Japanese language skills is lower, timeline shorter for migration, and focus on trade and service sectors aligns with LaMP’s focus areas.

A key challenge that is critical to overcome for the success of this project is to generate tangible demand from employers in Japan for Kenyan workers. Kenya is a new source country for labor compared to more established source countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines. As a result, employers are more hesitant to become the first mover or “first penguin”, despite the high labor supply and levels of education and skillset in Kenya.

To address these challenges and further our work in Japan, LaMP is seeking a consultant based in Japan who can represent LaMP. The key responsibility of the consultant is to open doors and generate tangible worker orders from employers for Kenyan workers.

LaMP has partnered with Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), a global transportation company with a recruitment arm, to generate demand for Kenyan workers. The consultant will supplement MOL’s efforts and work in coordinationwith the team.

Over the next year, LaMP will develop the mobility program with the objective of sending workers to Japan by Q2, 2025. An indicative timeline is listed below, though is subject to change:

- Q2/Q3 ‘24 – Actively recruiting employers

- Q3’24 - Q3 ‘25 – Language training and legal prep work

- Q2-Q4 ‘25 – Worker placements

LaMP can use some of its philanthropic funding to subsidize some of the additional costs of hiring workers from Kenya such as language training, incremental travel expenses, etc. LaMP can also explore subsidizing additional costs that an employer may incur when sourcing workers from a new country such as Kenya.

LaMP has laid the groundwork in Kenya and Japan by onboarding sending and receiving side organizations and language schools, developing strong relationships with Kenyan and Japanese government officials, and collaborating with relevant legal and diaspora support. More details on the support LaMP can provide to an employer is included in Attachment I: The Case for Sourcing Workers from Kenya (https://lampforum.org/wp-content/uploads/