"When looking at our system of importing foreign workers, including for long-term stays, the most important thing is to gain a clear consensus on the questions: What is Japan? Who are the Japanese? -- issues that are fundamental to our nation's identity," it said.
Despite Asian nations, such as Thailand and the Philippines, pounding on Japan's door to admit workers like caregivers through free trade deals, some argue that not all of the nation's labor and population woes will be solved by foreigners.
Junichi Goto, an international economics professor at Kobe University who is taking part this month in a labor ministry panel on the foreign worker issue, said most of the worker shortfall could be met by productivity increases and greater participation by women in the workforce.
"Even after Japan takes some measures to increase productivity and the participation of female workers, Japan might, and I emphasize, might, face some labor shortage," he said. "But in my view, illegal migrants are out."
Hiroaki Miyoshi, a research fellow at Doshisha University in Kyoto, argued the higher birth rates of foreigners would drop as soon as they landed in Japan, and the age profile of the immigrant population would increase at the same rate as the Japanese, thus taxing the already burdened pension system.
"Bringing in more foreigners is like a narcotic," he said. "In the short term it feels great, but in the long run it doesn't make life easier."
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