Right now I am translating an agreement relating to a fairly expensive sounding construction project somewhere in Japan, which contained the following rather interesting clause.
As the official language of the construction project shall be Japanese, competent interpreters and personnel will be assigned as needed to the worksite and offices, so as to avoid obstacles to ordinary communication or directives.
Are there really that many foreign construction workers in Japan?
I spent a day working as a landscaper, does that count?
Judging from that experience, Chinese people on student visas do construction/landscaping/moving work all the time. When the manager saw a white guy show up at the job site he almost shit his pants since he was so used to Chinese workers.
In Tokyo, I have seen SE Asian-looking faces mixed in with the Japanese construction workers. You would think there is enough Japanese labor to go around but maybe they just get away with paying the foreigners less.
I still have a fond memory of seeing a ~200cm black guy working on a house under construction in Tokyo. He was practically a human crane given the small scale of the building, so I imagine he was well worth his salary.