Japan needs more ‘unskilled’ foreign workers – but they can’t bring family
The nursing care, agriculture, construction, hotel and shipbuilding sectors were initially considered as five areas where unskilled foreign workers will be employed
Japan wants to start accepting more foreign workers from April next year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday, as the country faces a serious labour crunch across many of its industries.
In a meeting with Cabinet members, Abe instructed them to speed up the necessary preparations for the plan to be implemented in line with the targeted starting point, which will effectively open the door to blue-collar labourers in addition to currently accepted highly skilled foreigners.
With this plan, the government is considering reorganising the Immigration Bureau and setting up an affiliated agency that will solely be in charge of handling unskilled foreign workers.
“To create an environment in which foreigners can live smoothly is an important issue,” Abe said during the meeting that was convened after the Cabinet approved last month the plan to increase the foreign labour force.
The government wants to submit a bill to revise the nation’s immigration law to an extraordinary Diet session expected to be convened in the autumn.
Before introducing the new system, the government still needs to specify which industries will be eligible to offer foreign nationals menial jobs and strengthen measures against potential abuse of the framework.