Cross-Border Labour Market Groundwork

This chapter investigates how brokers from the host society collaborate with Japanese client firms and Vietnamese public universities through organising internship training programmes. Intermediaries organise the training programmes in these universities and thus serve as brokers who are part of the migration infrastructure, recruiting potential participants and determining their potential value through communications with Japanese firms and universities. The chapter also illustrates that the internship participants are recruited as early as possible to be transformed into commodities matching the Japanese employer’s demand, in addition to being bound by financial contracts. These contracts prevent the commodities from leaving their employment, so that the market actors can maintain them in the market. Furthermore, intermediaries are exposed to competition in securing the necessary skilled workforce with other non-Japanese firms in Vietnam, as other countries’ firms seek similar skilled commodity. As argued in this chapter, the intermediaries initiate the ‘production’ of skilled commodity (Vietnamese IT and engineering professionals) via this training programme, and this scheme is positioned as part of the launch or establishment of the cross-border labour market.