Japan saw its biggest year-on-year jump in foreign workers since records began, government data showed yesterday, as the country seeks to address labor shortages exacerbated by its aging population.
In October last year, the nation’s foreign workforce stood at 2.3 million — an increase of around 254,000 people, or 12.4 percent, from a year earlier, Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare data showed.
That marks the biggest jump since records began in 2008, and is the latest in a series of annual record-breaking increases.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The total has jumped around threefold from a decade ago, in 2014, when the number of foreign workers stood at 788,000.
The number of businesses employing at least one foreign worker also hit a record high of around 342,000, up 7.3 percent from a year ago, data showed.
Japan has the world’s second-oldest population after Monaco, according to the World Bank, and its relatively strict immigration rules mean it faces growing labor shortages. The aging nation will need 6.88 million foreign workers in 2040 to meet its growth targets, according to an estimate by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
Yesterday’s data showed Vietnamese, Chinese and Filipinos were the top three nationalities in Japan’s foreign labor force. Japan also saw a surge in foreign workers from Myanmar, Indonesia and Sri Lanka last year, many of whom were blue-collar workers or students rather than high-skilled professionals.
Among the most common jobs held by foreign workers were positions in the manufacturing, hospitality and retail sectors.
A “technical intern” program continued to account for a sizeable portion of the foreign workforce, at 20.4 percent. The state-sponsored scheme is ostensibly an attempt by Japan to give participants from countries such as China and Vietnam specialized experience to use in their home countries.
However, critics have long called it a “backdoor” source of foreign labor in a conservative nation loath to officially acknowledge it is open to immigrants.
The intern program has also been long dogged by allegations of discrimination and physical abuse.
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