.

While Tokyo dictates national policy, some Japanese municipalities and recruitment agencies have their own playbooks. Fukuoka, for instance, has carved out a reputation for its business-friendly policies and welcoming international climate.

It was the first in Japan to declare its ambitions to become a Startup City hub for entrepreneurship and innovation in 2012.

In November 2023, Fukuoka became the first municipality to offer expedited visas for IT talent, a scheme that has since been expanded to include semiconductor talent. Four more have since followed: Kumamoto and Miyagi prefectures, and the cities of Kitakyushu and Sapporo.

Kitakyushu has concluded agreements with recruitment agencies in Vietnam to train 360 highly skilled Vietnamese IT graduates by 2029 to go to Kitakyushu companies involved in, among other things, software application and development and smart city infrastructure development.

Aichi and Shiga prefectures also have direct partnership agreements with the prestigious Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) to develop career pipelines, as do some Japanese companies, including the Ibaraki-based trading company Sekisho Group.

Japan’s regional neighbours have similar incentives.

South Korea blends specialised STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) scholarships with guaranteed post-graduation employment and a path-to-residency visa programme that significantly shortens the eligibility period for permanent residency.

Over in Taiwan, the INTENSE (International Industrial Talents Education) programme, spearheaded by the Education Ministry, provides scholarships to overseas students in exchange for a commitment to work in Taiwan after graduation.

There is no shortage of employment in the semiconductor industry, with 34,000 new jobs opening across Taiwan’s semiconductor sector in 2024, including at global giants such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, Nvidia, Micron and MediaTek.

Many of the programmes thrive on word of mouth from alumni.

Offered concurrent doctoral positions in nanophysics by top universities in both South Korea and Taiwan in 2015, Duong Pham, 44, decided on National Cheng Kung University in Tainan after his friends vouched for its superb academic infrastructure.

“I found the academic and research environment in Taiwan, particularly at my university, to be extremely good,” Duong said.

The experience opened doors, and he returned to Vietnam in 2022, where he is now a manager for a Taiwanese company.

Leaving Vietnam in search of opportunities

Duong is among tens of thousands of Vietnamese students and alumni who have launched their ambitions in Taiwan.

Taiwan is currently home to about 40,000 Vietnamese students, the island’s largest international student cohort. To them, the world-leading semiconductor hub offers an unparalleled opportunity to gain hands-on technological experience in fields such as AI, robotics and chip lithography.

Vietnamese students have also flocked to South Korea.

In 2025, a record 250,000 Vietnamese students were studying overseas at the high school, university and postgraduate levels, and a staggering 108,000, or 43.2 per cent, were in South Korea, according to Vietnam’s Education Ministry. For the first time, Vietnamese student numbers there eclipsed those from China.

Underpinning this trend is deep-rooted corporate goodwill: South Korean giant Samsung is the single largest foreign investor in Vietnam, pouring more than US$23 billion (S$29.7 billion) into six factories and employing 87,000 people.

Through the Samsung Talent Programme, the company systematically scouts top IT, electronics and telecommunications students at top-tier Vietnamese institutions such as HUST, the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology and Hanoi University of Industry.

Between 2026 and 2028, Samsung plans to inject 17 billion Vietnamese dong (S$834,000) into scholarship funds across partner universities in Vietnam.

Many Vietnamese are attracted to working for a big-name company in South Korea.

A Vietnamese engineer, who wanted to be known only as Jason because he was not authorised to speak to the media, has been working for Samsung in Seoul for a decade, where he has settled comfortably.

The now 39-year-old had been awarded a full PhD scholarship by the company and was recruited immediately after.

The father of two values the high quality of life in South Korea, praising the exceptional healthcare system and robust education options for his children.

“The main thing is I feel I can do what I want to do and can see concrete results from my research,” he said.

Those interviewed said learning a foreign language and integrating into an unfamiliar culture are not insurmountable challenges, especially given the attractive salary packages and opportunities.

At the same time, however, they may have to temper their expectations about having the same career progression as their local colleagues.

Nguyen Van Canh was studying at Korea University when Samsung came knocking, recruiting him and several other foreign students during a corporate visit to his campus. He resigned in 2020 after more than 10 years with the chaebol – a family-owned conglomerate – having grown restless with the velvet handcuffs.

“In Korea, working for one of the chaebols is very desirable as salaries and benefits are top-tier and the environment isn’t as stressful as at smaller companies,” the 42-year-old told ST. “But I decided to leave because I felt I’d been in my comfort zone for long enough and found it difficult to progress further.”

Rather than move back to Vietnam, he relocated with his wife, who is also Vietnamese, and their three children to Britain, where he works for a dating and social networking app.

“I was looking to work in an English-speaking country to provide better opportunities for my children,” Canh said.

Cracking the seniority ceiling

While the historic weakening of the yen has made Japan highly affordable as a study destination, it has also reduced its appeal as a place to work.

But the real retention battle, noted BRIN migration reseacher Firman, hinges on career prospects.

His research has found that many South-east Asian professionals treat Japan not as a permanent home, but as a springboard for Western economies – in effect echoing Canh’s move from South Korea to Britain.

“For many foreigners, it is very difficult to advance their career past a certain point in Japan due to the entrenched culture of seniority that still dominates some large companies,” Firman said, using the Indonesian saying urut kacang, or “string bean-sorting”, a metaphor for a strict hierarchical system.

He noted that it was normal for people to move on.

“Recruiters and headhunters cast a wide net, and for top-tier professionals, moving across countries is standard practice,” Firman said. He said some may choose to relocate to places where it is easier to obtain a visa, and others to countries that offer the highest pay.

Conversely, some feel a profound affinity that keeps them anchored for decades.

Hary Gunarto, an Indonesian computer engineer and professor emeritus at APU, arrived in Japan in 2000 and sank permanent roots, even as many of his brightest pupils have migrated to the US.

To him, Japan’s unique charm lies in its blend of Western modernity, through its embrace of technological advances, and Eastern values and norms such as politeness, collectivism and deep respect for elders.

He believes that the “Japanese mindset” of continuous innovation and seeking practical, everyday solutions to existing problems is critical to South-east Asia’s domestic development.

“We have a lot that we can learn from Japan,” he said.

Fathya, the APU undergraduate, also intends to stay for at least three years, having accepted a job offer at a Japanese social enterprise.

“I want to keep working in Japan because I feel like I’ve been growing and developing more here,” she said.

“But eventually I want to establish my own venture in Indonesia, applying what I’ve learnt about Japanese infrastructure and public policy in an Indonesian context.”

Will Japan be the next Vietnamese tech hub?

The corporate landscape is being changed by the migration.

Attracted by Japan’s stable business environment and massive domestic market, Vietnamese technology companies are aggressively expanding their footprint in the country, evolving from simple outsourcing vendors into high-level digital partners.

About 100 Vietnamese IT companies now have offices in Japan, with the largest being FPT, which has about 5,000 employees across 17 locations in the country.

Hanoi native Nguyen Van Tu, 28, is an example of the new entrepreneurial class. He first arrived in Japan in 2018 on a MEXT scholarship and returned to Vietnam after graduating with a degree in commerce from Kagoshima University in 2021.

“At the time, I envisioned pursuing an academic or research career,” Tu recalled. “But seeing the explosive potential of the technology industry, I completely pivoted.” He threw himself into machine learning courses to keep pace with AI’s rapid evolution.

After gaining some experience in Vietnam’s tech sector as an AI solutions consultant, liaising directly with corporate Japanese clients on complex automation projects, Tu moved back to Japan and is now based in Tokyo, where he heads Tinhvan Japan.

“The rapid growth of Vietnamese IT outsourcing firms in Japan has become a huge magnet for talent,” he said.

“Many young people working in other industries are switching to IT because of the strong appeal of these companies. Working in Japan, serving Japanese clients, but with Vietnamese colleagues and a company culture that remains distinctly Vietnamese – what could be more enjoyable for engineers far from home?”

This corporate shift reflects the advancements in South-east Asia’s technical capability. In the past, Japanese corporate interest in collaborating with Vietnamese IT firms was driven primarily by lower manpower costs and basic software testing.

Today, however, Vietnamese tech enterprises are increasingly entrusted with the initial planning and design of major enterprise projects.

Staffed by a young tech-native workforce, they have the capabilities and willingness to take on projects that risk-averse legacy Japanese companies might reject.

Luring talent home

While East Asia hunts for talent, ASEAN governments are acutely aware that they cannot build tomorrow’s digital economies on a depleted nest.

A fierce counter-offensive is under way, with incentives to lure their foreign-educated diaspora back home.

Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok are giving returning expats tax breaks for five years. In January, Jakarta launched a Global Citizenship visa programme, which offers lifetime residency to foreign nationals with blood or family ties to the country.

In May, Hanoi also fired a major shot across the bow by approving a comprehensive national programme for digital technology industry development.

The ambitious blueprint aims to transform Vietnam’s digital tech sector into a core pillar of the national economy, with a market valuation of at least US$300 billion by 2030.

To achieve this, the government has set explicit targets to cultivate a domestic workforce of 7,000 highly specialised AI experts and 50,000 advanced semiconductor engineers by then.

Hoping to contribute to the tech ecosystem back home is Tran Son Tung, 29, a doctoral student at the Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering at Kyushu University.

He has been interning with a Japanese conglomerate since May, but plans to return to Vietnam to work as a researcher after graduating in September.

Others are making similar decisions.

Indonesian Pasha Laksamana, 32, secured a job at NatSteel, a Singapore-based steel manufacturer and metal recycling company, after graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University in 2015.

He quit after three years in the job.

“I didn’t feel that it was the right industry for me. I wanted to move into data analysis, but I felt like I wouldn’t be able to get those cutting-edge roles as a foreigner in Singapore,” he said. “Meanwhile, at the time, the tech industry in Indonesia was booming.”

Pasha returned to Indonesia, climbed the ranks at major Indonesian e-commerce giants, and now works in the Jakarta office of Aliz, a Hungary-based data consulting firm.

Pasha is pragmatic about whether he will join the global tech migration stream again.

He is open to opportunities but is not actively looking to leave, saying: “Financial remuneration is a big factor. But I also want to develop myself, so if big AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic set up a hub somewhere (nearby) like Singapore, that would be a big draw.”

For some South-east Asian students, Singapore offers opportunities similar to those in East Asia: access to reputable universities and the chance to work at the regional headquarters of multinational companies.

The Republic, on its part, is in a similar predicament, grappling with shrinking birthrates and a greying workforce. It is looking for ways to attract foreign talent.

Among them, the bond-free ASEAN scholarship is a potential pipeline. The Singapore government began offering scholarships to promising students at the secondary and junior college levels in the region in 1969, and extended it to tertiary students in 1998. The programmes started small, with 25 to 30 places.

In recent years, however, Singapore’s Ministry of Education has awarded about 400 pre-tertiary and another 400 tertiary scholarships each year, the ministry said in a parliamentary response in March.

Some recipients stay on to work after graduation.

It is clear that the global race for human capital shows no signs of cooling.

For East Asia’s greying giants, importing high-skilled talent is no longer a luxury but an existential lifeline.

But for ASEAN’s emerging economies, the hope is that their brightest stars will eventually bring their hard-won innovation capital back home, turning a potential brain drain into a global, circular brain gain.