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HR Brew

World of HR

Kristen Parisi

hr-brew.com

 of 3.95 million this year, yet as its native-born population continues to fall, some Japanese aren’t ready for the country to diversify.

Japan has one of the oldest populations in the world (ranking at number four for people 65+ years of age), and as more people leave the workforce, the country has increasingly welcomed foreign workers to help fill the gaps. There are currently 2.3 million foreign-born workers in Japan, accounting for roughly 3.7% of the workforce, but some 

A recent survey from Japan’s Nikkei stock market index found that 

 CEOs in the country want to hire more foreigners, and 99% plan to “actively” hire workers from overseas.

However, the country’s new far-right party, Sanseito, has encouraged a growing movement promoting the notion that immigration is detrimental to Japan’s culture, Bloomberg 

. The party and its supporters, which have expanded quickly since 2020, are driven in part by the rising cost of living and stagnant wages.

Employers are in a difficult position, and many immigrants say they have experienced discrimination at work. Some Sanseito supporters have protested outside Toyota’s headquarters in Toyota City which has an immigrant population from 76 countries. The company has turned to immigrants to accommodate expanded production because it couldn’t recruit enough local workers.

Some employers are trying to make it easier for foreign-born employees to integrate into Japanese society, offering furnished homes and language training, according to 

Minoru Hatanaka, president of Foodsworks Hisae Corp, who runs a sushi chain, opened a Japanese language school in 2023 to help foreign workers. His company began hiring international workers roughly 10 years ago and believes they could help boost Japan’s population, he 

“Unless it becomes the norm to see foreigners working for Japanese companies, Japan will be beaten by other countries.”

Employers in Japan need foreign workers to fill vacancies

Employers say there aren’t enough locals to fill open positions, but anti-immigrant sentiment is growing. 

World of HR: The majority of employers in Japan plan to hire foreign-born workers

The UK signaled earlier this year that it would change its visa fees and regulations to attract valuable talent, following President Trump’s Sept. announcement that H-1B visa application fees will increase to $100,000. But recent reports indicate that the UK isn’t the only country ready to capitalize on this potential talent opportunity.

 Coincidentally, China earlier this month rolled out the K visa to lure college graduates and young STEM professionals to the country, Al Jazeera 

. While details are limited, and it’s unclear how long K visa holders can remain in the country, according to reports, it does not require employer sponsorship, unlike other Chinese visa programs.

Though the visa does remove some barriers to entry, some experts warn that it alone won’t be enough to outweigh the challenges associated with working in China as a foreign professional, including language differences and long working hours, Al Jazeera reported.

“I can’t imagine many foreign graduates interested in the ‘9-9-6’ work-life balance that many Chinese firms are known for,” Michael Feller, chief strategy at Geopolitical Strategy, an Australia-based consulting firm, told Al Jazeera, noting that offering English-language education could help boost inclusion efforts.

Not everyone is excited about the new visa. China’s economy has slowed in 2025, and urban unemployment has risen. The country also has more college graduates than ever before, but a shortage of white-collar jobs. Some Chinese citizens fear the visa could lead employers to prioritize hiring foreign workers over locals, according to 

“We already have a surplus of domestic talent—and now you’re bringing in foreign college graduates?” one person 

, countries are contending with a widening skills gap, and determining how to bring in more top talent to strengthen their own businesses and economy. Canada and the UK have considered changing their existing work visas, according to 

 to attract more tech workers with experience and advanced education, the Korea Herald 

Meanwhile in the US, the H-1B visa changes have companies, especially tech startups, facing an extra hiring hurdle.

“If you’re going to bring someone on that’s entry-level, that’s $60,000 a year, are you going to pay $100,000?” Chris Pisarski, founder of Crustdata, 

 Business Insider, noting the fee change will cause a skills gap for entry-level employees. “I don’t think any companies will do that.”

World of HR: China increases efforts to lure tech talent away from the US

The country recently launched its K-visa program to attract more top talent from abroad, although many are not convinced the program will be effective.

World of HR: China introduces new work visa to lure foreign tech talent

Employers in the UK are limiting how much salary information they share with job applicants, according to recent data from 

In August, just 56% of job listings analyzed by Indeed had salary information, down from 65% in September 2024.

While the European Union issued a pay transparency directive in 2023 that will take effect in June 2026, employers in the UK are not obligated by law to share salary information in job listings. The decline in transparency observed by Indeed could be related to the 

 the UK is experiencing. Now, more workers are “job hugging,” and just 1 in 10 employers plans to hire before the end of the year, HR Brew 

“Some hiring managers are being reigned in a bit whenever they get into negotiations around recruiting people just because of the broader context where organizations might be having to think about redundancies or hiring freezes,” David Lorimer, partner and specialist in pay transparency at Lewis Silkin, told Bloomberg.

Even with the decline, employers in the UK are more likely to advertise salary ranges for open positions than US employers (56% vs. 48.2%, respectively), according to Bloomberg.

The US has taken a piecemeal approach to pay transparency. There are at least 

, plus Washington, DC, with pay transparency laws on the books, requiring companies to share salary ranges in job postings, which some research and many pay equity advocates have said can help reduce the 

Companies that don’t provide pay information upfront could miss out on Gen Z talent, according to data from 

, which polled 2,000 Gen Z Americans about their attitudes toward finances and found that 58% of respondents would not apply for a job that did not list a salary.

“With Gen Z becoming a larger part of the workforce, it may be time for those employers to reconsider their choice,” Alex Beene, financial literacy instructor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, told 

. “More importantly, it may not just be Gen Z in the years to come, as more employees across generations are desiring to have a better picture of pay because of current inflationary pressures.”

Fewer UK employers are sharing salary information upfront

The decline could indicate an employer shift in hiring in a stalled economy, Indeed finds.

World of HR: Fewer UK employers are sharing salary information in job listings

Remote work in Europe doubled between 2019 and 2024, with more than one in five workers in the region now working remotely at least one day a week. Despite the popularity of remote work, 

 from the European Central Bank (ECB) found that remote and hybrid workers wouldn’t take a pay cut to keep their current schedule.

 Roughly 34% of workers in Europe are remote at least one day a week, and 10.6% are fully remote, according to the CEB. Most workers prefer a hybrid schedule.

While workers enjoy working remotely, 70% said they don’t love it enough to take a pay cut. Those who are willing to sacrifice some of their salary said they would accept a 2.6% decrease, while 8% would take a 6%–10% reduction.

The report noted that remote work can inhibit workers’ ability to be recognized and socialize at work, which may make some unwilling to take a pay cut. But younger workers and those with children at home reported being more likely to accept a pay cut, as did those with longer commutes.

“For some employees—particularly those with children or long commutes—working from home is highly valued, as it can help them balance their work and personal life,” the authors concluded. “Remote working flexibility can therefore play a role in attracting and retaining workers, especially in tight labour markets where skilled staff are scarce.”

 Workers in the US may be more willing than their European counterparts to give up some cash to work remotely, according to recent surveys from 

Fifty-five percent of fully in-person workers said they would accept a pay cut in exchange for a remote or hybrid option, Youngstown State University found. Many respondents said they would accept up to an 11% pay cut to work a hybrid schedule, while just one-third of current remote and hybrid workers said a pay increase could lure them into the office full-time. Meanwhile, 69% of respondents to FlexJobs’ survey said they would take a pay cut to work remotely, up 11% from 2024.

Maybe US workers could be persuaded to give up work-from-home days if they had European benefits, according to 

 from CNBC—universal healthcare and four weeks of PTO a year is quite alluring.

Most workers in Europe would not take a pay cut to continue working remotely

Parents and people with long commutes are more likely to take a pay cut to work remotely, study finds. 

World of HR: Workers in Europe like working remotely—but not enough to take a pay cut

Even as the global economy shakes and waves, the war for some talent continues. Last week, the US announced it would increase fees for new H-1B visas, and the UK is reportedly exploring how it can capitalize on a potential opportunity in the talent market.

 Treasury officials in the UK are looking into new regulatory measures that could help bring more top-tier talent into the country, the Guardian 

, especially in high-growth industries like manufacturing, clean energy, and financial services.

While visas for foreign workers in the UK are just £1,000 (less than half of the current US H-1B visa price), many employers reportedly feel the cost is too high and the applications take too long to process. New measures could help reduce both.

“We’re talking about the sort of people who have attended the world’s top five universities or have won prestigious prizes,” one official told the 

. “We’re kicking around the idea of cutting costs to zero.”

The potential changes come three months after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer 

 a Global Talent Taskforce as part of a larger partnership between the business community and the government. The taskforce is part of the country’s Modern Industrial Strategy, a £54 million investment to grow businesses, lower regulation fees, and upskill the workforce for next-gen jobs

In 2020, the UK rolled out a global talent visa to attract high-value workers who aren’t tied to an employer. Nearly 4,000 global talent visas had been issued by 2023, but applications have fallen considerably, according to the Financial Times.

 In mid-September, the Trump administration 

 that it would increase the fee for H-1B visas from roughly $4,500, to $100,000 in an attempt to pressure US companies to hire US citizens. The administration is also considering a new process for choosing H-1B recipients, and may move away from the current lottery-style system, CNBC 

Some economists warn that while the plan may open doors for US workers in the short term, it could backfire in the long term, by preventing tech companies from recruiting the best workers.

“By making it very expensive for companies to attract foreign talent, and by forcing some international students to leave the country after graduation, the brain drain will weigh heavily on productivity,” Atakan Bakiskan, an economist at Berenberg Bank 

H-1B visas have been scrutinized for some time by people across the political spectrum. Some believe they take job opportunities away from skilled workers in the US, while others feel they are predatory to foreign workers. Employers often pay H-1B visa holders less than the median wage for their roles, and workers are then tied to their employers, limiting their job mobility.

Regardless of the underlying issues with H-1B visas, the new fees will likely limit companies’ ability to hire foreign workers, economists warn, putting startups at risk of exporting AI jobs.

“A $100k H-1B fee won’t bother big tech, but it kneecaps startups and bodyshops the same, and that’s a mistake. Early teams can’t swallow that tax. Bodyshops who abuse H-1B should be stopped. There are ways to do that without entrenching big tech and throttling startups,” Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, wrote in a LinkedIn 

. “In the middle of an AI arms race, we’re telling builders to build elsewhere.”

World of HR: UK may reduce fees for skilled worker visas

The country is considering multiple tactics to attract desirable workers to the country.

Japan will raise the disabled worker quota from 2.5% to 2.7% next summer, and it’s causing concern for some employers.

Like countries including Brazil and India, Japan uses hiring quotas to encourage employers to hire more disabled workers. The requirements went into effect in the 1970s with a quota of 1.5%. More than 40 years later, just 46% of employers currently meet or exceed the target disability representation rate, and employers that don’t meet the quota have to pay a fine, according to the 

In a country of roughly 124 million people, there are nearly 700,000 disabled workers, but businesses struggle to find workers to fill the quota, according to 

. The country and its employers have also taken steps toward disability inclusion, by incorporating assistive technology and educating non-disabled workers, the Japan Times 

However, employers still face hurdles as they try to meet their hiring targets. While there are more disabled people in the workforce than ever, the overall workforce is shrinking, and many workplaces are still not designed for people with physical disabilities. Furthermore, some disabled people claim that the work isn’t set up for their skillsets and disabled workers are hired just to hit the quota, which results in high turnover, the Financial Times reported. Workers are frequently hired for menial jobs, like sorting mail or doing inventory at clothing stores.

“Society has made some progress in creating a barrier-free environment,” Naoya Tsuji, director of the AJU Center for Independent Living, told the Financial Times. “If the workplace environment were more barrier-free, people with disabilities would be able to work more.”

Tsuji added that more employers need to provide flexibility so disabled workers can reach their potential.

“The fast-paced shift to active recruitment raises such concerns as the quality and mismatch in the employment,” Satoko Shinbo, a professor and disability employment specialist at Hosei University, told the Japan Times. “Companies need to discuss with such employees their disability conditions and suitability for jobs to constantly make adjustments.”

Companies in Japan struggle to hire disabled workers

The hiring quota will increase in 2026, but workers face hurdles to accessible, meaningful work.

World of HR: Companies in Japan struggle to hire disabled workers

The UK is in the midst of economic slowdown, and it’s hitting employers and workers, according to 

 The UK job market has been unstable since October 2024, and employers are struggling. Just 11% of UK employers plan to hire before the end of the year, the sharpest recruitment decline in the world, according to a 

“The UK economy has stalled and with it so has hiring,” Petra Tagg, workforce solutions director at ManpowerGroup, told 

. “The labour market has been moving at an almost glacial pace for months and, while there remains some movement in roles for the highly skilled, we’re very far off the 30 percent hiring outlooks we saw in early 2022.”

Businesses in the UK have to decide if they want to invest in new workers or AI and automation, according to Tagg, and are looking to reduce costs and use “flexible hiring arrangements” to adapt to the new economic reality.

Workers are seemingly reacting in kind, with more than half recently saying they are more focused on job security than career ambition, according to the Independent. The trend (because everything needs a name these days) is referred to as “job hugging.”

“Workers are facing a difficult balancing act—while pay growth remains strong, inflation continues to eat into real wages, and job opportunities are thinning out,” Nina Skero, economist and chief executive of the Center for Economics and Business Research, told the Independent.

 Job hugging isn’t just happening in the UK—workers in the US are also holding onto their jobs for dear life. August was the latest in a string of disappointing months for the US jobs market, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. After jumping to bigger ships in 2022, employees are staying put, waiting for calmer waters, the Wall Street Journal 

. Most don’t see opportunities outside of their current role and expect to stay in it for at least the next six months, according to a report from Eagle Hill.

“A more substantial downturn…[is] not a guarantee, but especially with the increasing unemployment rate there are more signs that the job market is weakening in an unhealthy manner,” Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor, 

Experts warn that job hugging isn’t necessarily good for employers, because a certain amount of turnover is necessary for motivated and engaged teams, according 

Matt Bohn, a senior client partner at Korn Ferry 

 that the consequences are a mixed bag, as employers can train tenured workers for career paths directly within their firms. However, “firms run the risk of becoming comfortable perches from which workers can jump when the time’s right.”