自1980年代日本開放外籍勞工入境後，外籍勞工便成為日本社會的新成員。之後，因應少子化、高齡化、勞動人口減少的問題與提升國際競爭力的前提下，外籍勞工的種類呈現多元化的趨勢。2012年5月，日本政府在「經濟理性」的考量下決定引進外國高階人才，使得日本的出入國政策出現分歧點。本研究以文獻研究為主，探討日本出入國政策的修正過程、開放外國移民的相關論述及高階人才積分制度的現況與問題。研究結果得知，該制度積分計算方式甚嚴，應屆外國畢業生應無法以此方式申請在日工作。同時以研究者本身為例，計算「高度學術研究人才」領域的積分，發現該制度對於「瞭解日本」的外國高階人才似乎較為友善，且具有階級篩選的色彩。此外，研究者亦建議「年齡」、「年收入」和「日語能力」等基準應顧及相對低所得國家的平均薪資、申請者學術領域上的差別、國際貨幣匯率變動與年輕人的學習潛力，以吸引更多的人才考慮移居日本，進而擴大政策效果。

Since 1980s, Japan opened labor market for foreign labors, and they became new members in Japanese society. After that, continuing struggling with the problems of low-birth rate, increase of elderly, decline of local labors and trying to enhance international competitiveness, Japanese government decided to enlarge the numbers of migrants for highly skilled talents in May 2012. It forced Japan to stand at a crossroad for accepting pure labor or create a class selection system in foreign labors. Through document analysis, this paper intends to discuss the reform and examine the immigration history, relative policies and practices of accepting foreign labors from figuring out the policy process of “point system” for accepting highly skilled talents. While taking the authors as the examples in the point system, it is initially found that the point system is very strict to international students, who have just graduated from universities, to apply because they and have lower incomes and few working experiences. Moreover, this point system prefers those who know Japan well in the field of “advanced academic research activities,” and shows the function of “class selection” as well. It is also suggested that the standards of age, annual income, and Japanese proficiency should be amended according to the factors of salary level in lower-income countries, differences of applicants’ academic fields and international exchange rates in order to enhance policy effects.