Japan shuns Hong Kong model as it prepares to get its first foreign maids
About 50 Filipino domestic helpers are scheduled to begin arriving in Japan in February as part of the country’s first move toward bringing in foreign workers for housekeeping services.
Previously, only certain households, such as those of foreign diplomats, had been allowed to employ foreign housekeepers. But in 2015, the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushed to deregulate the market in a bid to increase women’s workforce participation.
The admission of cleaners from overseas — first to Kanagawa and Osaka and later to Tokyo — is aimed at making housekeeping services affordable for the middle classes and getting more Japanese women into the workforce.
It is a very Japanese way of doing things. We couldn’t have them flooding in like they do in Hong Kong
The legal change, which is also aimed at easing labour shortages in Japan’s housekeeping industry, paved the way for foreigners to work as domestic workers in some designated areas, such as Kanagawa, the prefecture just southwest of Tokyo, and Osaka, the largest city in western Japan.