From our other sites
The story
Foreign staff working the registers at convenience stores are no longer an unusual sight. Reports say that in 2024, foreign part-time workers topped 80,000 at Japan’s three major chains alone, and a former employee who spent 30 years at 7-Eleven explains the background in a new book. On 5ch, a thread debating why fewer Japanese people are applying split into two camps: some pointed to low hourly wages and the sheer amount of chores like utility bill payments, while others blamed applicants themselves for being inflexible about shifts. The discussion got even more tangled as opinions praising foreign staff for working across the language barrier collided with complaints about poor Japanese and a refusal to apologize — turning into a debate too complicated for simple good-guy/bad-guy framing.
Foreign staff behind convenience store registers are now an everyday sight. Reports say that in 2024, foreign part-timers topped 80,000 at the three major chains alone.
But this shift can’t be explained simply by saying “there are more foreigners in Japan now.” Fewer Japanese people are applying to work at these stores, while international students have their own motivation to learn Japanese and Japanese-style work culture.
Shinichi Murao, who spent 30 years at 7-Eleven Japan and recently published the book “Manager, a Customer Got Furious When I Picked Up Pasta With Chopsticks: 23 Years of Foreign Workers and a Convenience Store Owner’s Family,” explains what’s happening on the ground from both the hiring side and the working side.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Wouldn't bother me if there were fewer — I only use them a few times a year anyway.
What are you gonna do for a bathroom then?
That's no different from someone who doesn't care about pro baseball screaming that domed stadiums are unnecessary.
Just because a total homebody like you doesn't use them doesn't mean they'll disappear — there's real demand, and they support students and workers on the ground.
– On top of that, there's all this extra busywork
They should just stop handling utility bill payments or something.
You can just scan the barcode at an ATM to pay, you know.
Utility bill payments are just scanning a barcode and stamping it — it's no burden on part-timers at all
Headquarters only complains because there's no profit in it for them
Package pickup and in-store delivery handling are way more of a hassle
But whenever you interview someone from headquarters, utility bills are always the first thing they bring up
Or carve up the area and have just one store per zone — regardless of chain — rotate through staying open 24 hours
Convenience stores also function as infrastructure and help with public safety
The truly scary camera is the one hidden in the back room that only the owner can view
The truly scary camera is the one hidden in the back room that only the owner can view
Convenience stores out in the countryside have a low percentage of foreign staff, but I think their attitude is terrible
Foreign staff in Tokyo are way better
At rural convenience stores, the Japanese staff have bad attitudes too
You'll get rung up while they're chatting with each other
It's also pretty noticeable that Japanese doesn't always get through to them
Like, why do I have to order by pointing and gesturing when I'm in Japan?
Pointing — is this about cigarettes (ID-checked tobacco sales)?
They should just get rid of cigarette sales already
That used to be true
These days there are tons of them who can't understand Japanese
And even when they mess up, they never apologize
The fact that they're doing customer service in Japanese — a language that isn't their native tongue — already puts them ahead of most Japanese people.
Could a Japanese person even work a customer-facing part-time job abroad (in a non-English-speaking country)?
Is that even allowed?
Wouldn't that cause a problem if someone reported it to headquarters?
What does the sign say? "On break" or something?
I once saw a FamilyMart with a sign in broken Japanese that said,
"Is not enough people. Today is closed finished." lol
Feel bad for the owner. Being a convenience store owner really isn't a job you should take on.
I know someone who got into it with a rude part-timer at a convenience store and
ended up banned from the place.
When I imagine myself working at a convenience store in a foreign country,
it makes me think foreign staff here are actually pretty high-caliber
"Can't do weekends, can't do mornings,
I'd only like to work a little on weekday evenings"
— with that vibe you're gonna get rejected from any part-time job
Probably just a lower caliber than the talent coming from overseas
Stores have the right to choose too
It's probably just because they're less competent than the foreign workers
Did you know the US and EU actually have more NEETs than Japan?
Didn't know that
Because there's no basis for it
You can't back that up either, can you?
Japan has an incredibly low unemployment rate by global standards
There are a lot of elderly people, sure, but many of them work part-time jobs too, and roughly 80% of the working-age population is employed — Japan is one of the hardest-working countries in the world
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The surge in foreign convenience store staff isn’t simply the flip side of a labor shortage. Beyond the sheer scale implied by the 80,000-plus figure at the three major chains alone, many of these workers are international students, who under the Immigration Control Act’s “activities outside the scope of permitted status” provision are limited to working no more than 28 hours a week. This restriction wasn’t mentioned in the original article or the thread, but it’s a structural factor that directly contributes to difficulty filling shifts and thinly spread staffing. The thread split over whether foreign staff are actually capable: some praised them simply for handling customer service across the language barrier, while others pushed back with complaints about poor Japanese and a refusal to apologize. Opinions were likewise divided on why fewer Japanese people are applying — some pointed to low wages and heavy chore loads like utility bill payments, others blamed applicants’ own inflexibility about shifts — with no consensus on which was the bigger factor. Anecdotes about overnight stores closing without authorization and debates over whether 24-hour operation still makes sense also highlighted the operational strain stores are under.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Why Have Convenience Stores Become Full of “Foreign Staff”? Over 80,000 at the Big Three… Ex-7-Eleven Employee Reveals the Reality Behind “Japanese People No Longer Applying”.”
Leave a Reply