News in Easy English: Japan ready to accept many more foreign workers – The Mainichi

TOKYO — The Japanese government made a decision during a Cabinet meeting on March 29 to include four more areas under the “specified skilled worker” residency status and allow up to 820,000 foreign workers to enter the program until the 2028 fiscal year.

Opposition to immigration in Japan has lessened due to the country’s shrinking population. The addition of four new fields — automotive transportation, railways, forestry, and the timber industry — is speeding up preparations to welcome more foreign workers. However, there are challenges, too.

The specified skilled worker residency status will welcome foreign workers in fields facing severe labor shortages. Twelve occupational fields have already been approved, from nursing care to construction, agriculture, and food services.

There are two types of specified skilled workers. Type (i) lets a person stay in Japan for a total of five years. Type (ii) lets a person stay indefinitely and have family members with them.

As of October 2023, there were about 2.05 million foreign workers in Japan.

When the specified skilled worker program was introduced in 2019, it faced some problems. There were objections, primarily from conservative members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). They said the program was effectively an immigration policy and could lead to competition for jobs, and could harm Japan. There was debate in the Diet over whether the system was an immigration policy.

Opposition parties said the government was moving too fast. This was because the government did not have details about the upper limit on the number of workers to be accepted. It also did not have detailed plans about how to prepare foreign workers to arrive in Japan. At first, only construction and shipbuilding were included in the Type (ii) category.

Japanese industries more reliant on foreign labor

Data from Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting Co. shows that in 2023, Japanese industries’ reliance on foreign workers more than doubled compared to 2013. More people know about Japan’s labor shortages, and an LDP member said that “worries about foreign workers have decreased.”

In August 2023, the government expanded the Type (ii) status to 11 fields, meaning more foreign workers will be able to get permanent residency. The latest addition of four new fields aligns with this trend.

Government sources said that the projected number of foreign workers to be accepted over the next five years was around 1 million. But this was reduced to 820,000, because Japanese industries were getting more prodictive, and because the government needed to protect jobs for Japanese people.

Over the past five years, more than 200,000 foreigners have got jobs as specified skilled workers. Because these workers have skills and don’t need training, they are very important for many industries. Also, unlike five years ago, LDP members have not objected to the new system to bring in more foreign workers.

An official from the Immigration Services Agency emphasized the rising necessity of foreign labor and the need for cooperation between the public and private sectors to let people know how good it is to work in Japan.

(Japanese original by Akira Iida, Tokyo City News Department, and Haruna Okuyama, Lifestyle, Science & Environment News Department)

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