Japan seeks to double foreign workers to combat ageing, falling population

Two aides to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the nation is planning to bring in more overseas workers to bolster the shrinking labour force.

Masahiko Shibayama, a lawmaker in Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker who serves as a special adviser to the prime minister, said in an interview in Singapore on Friday that policies under consideration may result in a doubling of foreign workers in Japan.

“Probably a lot of strategies are going to be adopted in the coming few years,” Shibayama said. “I don’t think it’s a fixed goal of the government but, in my opinion, doubling the number of foreign workers cannot be avoided in this global market situation. We have to make a sustainable system for accepting more and more foreign workers.”

Immigration has often been proposed as a solution to Japan’s demographic woes in an ageing society with a low birthrate. Abe has vowed to stop the population from falling below 100 million from the current 127 million, though the idea of bringing in more foreigners has yet to take root amid concerns about the potential effect on a relatively closed society.

In a separate interview on Thursday, Yasutoshi Nishimura, an adviser to Abe and former vice economy minister, said the government planned to pass a bill this autumn expanding a foreign “trainee” system under which workers are allowed entry for a limited period and was considering new visa categories for sectors suffering labour shortages.