Do I need a BA / BS to obtain a Work Visa for Japan?

Question:

Do I need a BA / BS to obtain a Work Visa for Japan?
Please list sources or personal experience for any answers you decide to offer.

Simply asking this:
I want to work in Japan, I am seeking an Employer that is willing to Sponsor a Working Visa for me, is it a GOVERNMENT requirement for me to hold a BA/BS or higher learning degree to obtain it?

To eliminate some answers: Let's say I want to be a trash collector or some other simple job. The base question does not include ANY requirements from the EMPLOYER, only the Immigration System Requirements.

Also, I am not listing my education or work experience, I just need to know the Baseline Prerequisites for obtaining a Sponsored Work Visa. I have been all over google and the Japanese BOI site with no solid answer.

Thank you for your time and response.

Answer:

Need NSA I understand your frustration about people pointing to a website but never actually read the laws.

There are no working type visas for simple jobs like trash collectors, to get a working type visa sponsorship you need a specialized skill and trash collector isnt one of them. You can work as a trash collector however if you had another status other than work (for example if you were married to a Japanese person, you can do anything you want).

However for a working type visa it comes down to having a specialty. A college degree can be waived if you have years of experience in a specialty, generally it can be from 3 - 10 years specialty depending on the type of job. For example a Chef specializing in Greek food with years of proven experience and is highly qualified in his field can come on a specialist in humanities even though they might have a degree. Someone who works at McDonalds flipping burgers on the otherhand would not.

The baseline answer is there is no base answer, because technically speaking there is no one single "work visa" but rather, there are different visa categories that allow work, each category has a different requirement.

For example, if you are coming as an English instructor, you might be a "Specialist in Humanities" or a "Specialist in International Services" or you might be "University Professor", you might even be an "Instructor", these are four different categories that an English instructor might have depending on what they are doing in Japan. Not all English instructors in Japan are the same, nor are they on the same visa status either. Each one of those has certain requirements and waivers. For example someone with three years of proven experience can be waived having a college degree for a specialist in humanities for language instruction.

The same applies for other lines of work:

There are also categories for "Journalist", "Engineer", "Intercompany Transferee" for people who are part of an international company transferring to a branch in Japan. A pilot for a airline might come in another visa category. Those are just some examples, there are other categories as well. So there are many categories that someone might fit in, depending on what job they are working on in Japan. There is no one "work visa" that covers everything.

Each and every category requires different skill sets, educational requirements, experience etc.
Each of them also have waivers etc depending on experience.

It's actually quite broader depending on the type of jobs.

However all of them are for skilled people, picking up trash is not considered a skilled profession, nor is waiter, cashier, janitor, etc. therefor for those people there are no status they can get to come to Japan. That does not mean a foreigner can't work in those jobs, because as I said before, there are other foreigners in Japan that don't need a working type visa to work, they are spouses, permanent residences, long-term residents, dependents etc etc. but again for someone who is not one of those and is just someone looking to work in Japan as a janitor, it's not going to happen, it needs to be something else.