Yes. This is one of the most important differences between Specified Skilled Worker status and the technical intern training it largely replaces, and a surprising number of SSW workers do not know they have it.
Verify before you act on this. The Specified Skilled Worker system is revised frequently. The Immigration Services Agency of Japan and the ministry responsible for your field are the sources that bind. This page is orientation, not authority.
The rule, in outline
You may change employer within the same field. Your status of residence is tied to the field you tested into, not to the specific company that first hired you.
What that means in practice:
- Within your field: possible. You find a new employer, and the change is processed with immigration.
- To a different field: not a job change but a change of status, and it generally requires the new field’s skills evaluation test.
It is not automatic
Changing employer requires notification to the Immigration Services Agency, and your new employer must be qualified to employ SSW workers — meaning they meet the requirements and have support arrangements in place.
There is paperwork, and there are deadlines. Do not simply stop attending one job and start another. Working outside the conditions of your status of residence is a serious immigration matter, and the consequences fall on you rather than on the employer.
Your registered support organisation is obliged to support you through this, and is the first place to ask. See what a registered support organisation does.
Why this right matters so much
The inability to change employer was the structural flaw at the heart of the technical intern training programme. A worker who cannot leave has no leverage, and no leverage is how exploitation becomes possible: unpaid overtime, inflated accommodation charges, conditions that would not survive the ability to walk away.
The right to move is what makes the rest of your rights real. A worker who can leave can insist.
So it is worth knowing you have it, before you need it.
When you should seriously consider leaving
- Wages below the legal minimum, or below what a Japanese worker doing your job is paid.
- Unpaid overtime, or hours that are expected but not recorded.
- Accommodation charged far above a realistic local rent — a common way of clawing back wages.
- Deductions you cannot get explained.
- Your passport or residence card being held by anyone. This is not permitted. It is a serious warning sign and there are authorities to contact.
- Harassment or unsafe conditions.
See SSW pay and deductions for what is normal and what is not.
Where to get help
Your registered support organisation first — supporting you is their legal function.
Labour standards inspection offices exist in every prefecture and handle wages, hours and safety complaints, including from foreign workers.
The Immigration Services Agency provides information services for foreign residents, in multiple languages.
You are not obliged to endure a bad placement, and leaving one is not a black mark against you.
The thing that gives you real mobility
Being legally able to change jobs and being practically able to are not the same.
What makes you actually mobile is being employable — your skills, your experience, and above all your Japanese. A worker at A2 with no additional study has a narrow set of employers who will take them. A worker at N3 has a much wider one, and the difference in bargaining power is substantial.
That is the strongest practical argument for continuing to study after you arrive, beyond the requirements of SSW (ii). See studying while working full time.