Luxembourg Offers 410,000 Yen/Month: Japanese Flood Farm and Dishwashing Jobs Amid Weak Yen

Australia’s “Working Holiday Visa issuance” reaches a record high, and the UK increases the acceptance quota for Japanese people by four times.

Luxembourg 407,092 yen, Australia 369,002 yen, Netherlands 346,575 yen, UK 343,809 yen, New Zealand 327,037 yen…

These are the “monthly wages” in the top five countries where Japanese people can do a working holiday (as of September 10, 2024). This was revealed in October by the study “2024 Working Holiday Minimum Wage Monthly Income Survey by Country” conducted by the study abroad agency “School With” (Tokyo).

A working holiday (or “Wahori”) is a system that allows people aged 18 to 30 to work while staying abroad for leisure or study. Japan introduced this system in 1980, starting with Australia, and it has since expanded to include 30 countries and regions (as of June 2024).

The monthly wages mentioned at the beginning are based on a survey conducted by School With, targeting 25 countries among the 30 that offer working holiday opportunities, which have set a minimum wage. The monthly wages were ranked by multiplying each country’s minimum wage by the required working hours.

In Japan, the minimum wage (per hour) is 1,054 yen, so if working full-time (8 hours × 20 days), the monthly wage would be 168,640 yen. Luxembourg, with the highest wage, is about 2.4 times higher than Japan’s.

While there is a lot of talk about working holidays these days, what is the reality? I spoke with Hideki Ota, the representative of School With.

“We are a study abroad agency, and we don’t directly introduce jobs in foreign countries. However, due to the weakening yen, the financial burden of study abroad has increased, and more people are opting for a combination of language studies and working holidays. While overseas travel has recovered to about 60-70% of pre-COVID levels, study abroad has rebounded to around 90%, so I believe it will return to 100% next year.” (Hideki Ota, hereafter the same)

Luxembourg, which was revealed to have the highest monthly wage in the survey, is likely to be receiving more attention as a working holiday destination.

“Luxembourg began accepting working holiday participants from Japan in June of this year. After this survey result, I tried to find people currently doing a working holiday in Luxembourg, but unfortunately, I haven’t found anyone yet.

The most popular countries are still English-speaking countries like Australia, Canada, the UK, and New Zealand.

In fact, the number of working holiday visas issued by Australia to Japanese people has reached an all-time high. Canada has a working holiday quota for Japanese people of 6,500, but it has already reached capacity this year. The UK has expanded its quota for Japanese participants to 6,000, which is four times the previous number, starting this year.”