Job Placement
Japan is increasingly turning to foreigners to fill gaps in its labor force as a population crunch looms. In 2022, individuals over the age of 65 made up 30 percent of Japan’s population. The country, considered a “super-aged” society, is also facing a low fertility rate, with the number of children a Japanese woman is expected to have in her lifetime falling to 1.2 last year.
These demographic shifts have raised concerns over the long-term viability of the world’s fourth-largest economy. Despite various policy efforts, none has been notably successful, making immigration a necessary solution.
Earlier this month, Japan’s parliament enacted updated laws to make it easier for foreign workers to stay longer and to grant inexperienced workers three years to develop their skills. Under certain conditions, workers can change jobs within the same industry after one year, provided they meet professional and language requirements.
The revisions follow efforts by Tokyo to make foreign workers in more industries eligible for a visa that allows five years of residence in Japan and another visa that grants permanent residency and permits family members to live with them. Since 2013, the number of foreign workers in Japan has set records annually, reaching 2.05 million in October, a rise of more than 40 percent since 2018, Nikkei Asia reported. At 25 percent, Vietnamese nationals make up the largest share of foreign workers, followed by mainland Chinese (19 percent) and Filipinos (11 percent). Still, Japan will need more than three times this number by 2040 to meet its economic growth targets, the government’s Japan International Cooperation Agency projected.
Japan’s demand for foreign labor is especially high in sectors that young Japanese are less inclined to work in, such as construction, manufacturing, agriculture and elder care. In 2022, foreign nationals made up about 2 percent of Japan’s population, a figure significantly lower than South Korea’s but comparable to Taiwan’s and higher than China’s. Japan’s demand for labor may have risen faster than the public’s acceptance of the increasing number of foreigners
