日本企業による外国人雇用行動の実態と変化 : 外国人雇用政策の過渡期に着目して

2010年代以降の移民政策活発化に伴って、多くの外国人労働者が日本で雇用されている。特に大 企業ではダイバーシティ・マネジメントの戦略的広がりもあり、ホワイトカラー外国人の受け入 れに積極性を示している。しかし既存研究は一時点の外国人雇用と基礎的な企業属性変数との関 連を主眼とし、外国人雇用政策に対応した外国人雇用行動のダイナミズムやダイバーシティ推進 状況などの変数を分析に含めてこなかった。そこで企業のパネルデータから、外国人雇用政策の 過渡期となる2010年から2022年までの外国人雇用行動を時系列的に分析した。その結果、外国人 全体の雇用と外国人管理職の雇用行動は強く関連する一方、両者ともにダイバーシティ推進の有 意な影響は確認されなかった。また外国人雇用数は近年有意に増加しているのに対し、管理職数 の有意な増加はみられないが、雇用企業数の観点で分析すると、外国人雇用企業の有意な増加に 先駆けて、外国人管理職雇用企業の有意な増加が確認された。 Since the 2010s, changes in immigration policy have led to a significant increase in the employment of foreign workers in Japan.Small and medium-sized enterprises primarily hire bluecollar foreign workers, while large firms are eager to employ white-collar foreign professionals, partly driven by strategic diversity management initiatives.However, existing studies often focus on the static relationship between foreign employment and basic firm attributes, overlooking the dynamics of foreign employment behavior and the status of diversity promotion in response to evolving foreign employment policies.To address this gap, we conducted a time-series analysis of foreign employment trends from 2010 to 2022, a transition period in foreign employment policy, using CSR panel data.The findings revealed a strong correlation between the total number of foreign employees and the hiring of white-collar foreign managers.However, no significant impact of diversity promotion initiatives on either measure was observed.Although the number of foreign employees has increased substantially in recent years, the growth in foreign managers has been limited.On the other hand, when analyzed by the number of employing firms, while there was a marked rise in firms hiring foreign nationals starting in 2020, a steady increase in firms employing foreign managers has been evident since 2015.These findings suggest that (1) the overall growth in foreign employment can be attributed to the increase in firms already employing foreign workers, (2) the number of foreign managers can be attributed to the rise in firms hiring foreign managers, and (3) the diversity promotion in companies does not necessarily correlate with a tangible increase in foreign employment.