As the nation looks to solve labor shortages made worse by its aging population, government data released Friday revealed that Japan recorded its largest annual increase in foreign workers since records began.
According to labor ministry figures, there were 2.3 million foreign workers in the country as of October 2024, up around 254,000 over the previous year.
It is the most recent in a string of yearly record-breaking increases and represents the largest jump since records began to be kept in 2008.
The total has jumped around threefold from a decade ago, in 2014, when thenumber of foreign workers stood at 788,000.
According to the World Bank, Japan has the second-oldest population in the world, after Monaco, and it is experiencing a growing labor shortage as a result of its comparatively stringent immigration laws.
According to figures released on Friday, the top three nationalities represented in Japan’s foreign labor force were Chinese, Filipinos, and Vietnamese.
Jobs in the industrial, hotel, and retail industries were among the most popular occupations for foreign workers.
At 20.4%, a “technical intern” program remained a significant contributor to the international workforce.
The state-sponsored program is purportedly an effort by Japan to provide participants from nations like China and Vietnam with specialized training that they can utilize back home.
However, in a conservative country unwilling to formally admit it is open to foreigners, detractors have long referred to it as a “backdoor” source of foreign labor.
Additionally, the intern program has long been plagued by claims of physical abuse and prejudice.
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