The Immigration Services Agency on Tuesday announced that the number of non-Japanese people working in Japan with the residence status of "specified skilled worker" was 22,567 as of the end of March, a number 5.6 times higher than a year before.
The status allows foreigners working in designated job categories, such as agriculture, to stay in Japan for five years. The government launched the program aimed at accepting more foreign workers in April 2019. Although the number of holders of the qualification has increased in the program's first two years, the rise has been modest partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
To obtain the qualification, one needs to either complete a three-year training program for technical interns, mostly in Japan, or pass both a Japanese-language exam and a specified skills test for a selected job category. Of the 22,567 people already qualified, 19,092, or 84.6%, finished the training program, and 3,353, or 14.9%, passed the exams, according to the agency.
It is believed that about 5,000 people who obtained the qualification outside Japan are currently barred from entering the country. If so, this means that immigration restrictions imposed due to the pandemic are one of the reasons for the low number of specified skilled workers actually in Japan.
Looking at the job categories in which they are working, 8,104, or 35.9%, work in the food and drink manufacturing industry, forming the largest share among the qualification holders, followed by 3,359, or 14.9%, working in agriculture; 2,116, or 9.4%, working in construction; and 1,937, or 8.6%, working in industrial machine manufacture.
By nationality, Vietnamese account for 62.7%, or 14,147 workers, followed by Chinese at 2,050, or 9.1%; and Indonesians at 1,921, or 8.5%. Many technical interns come from those countries.
The government has planned to accept up to 345,150 foreign workers through the program in the five years from fiscal 2019.
"The program is steadily taking root, but the pandemic has caused an unexpected halt to international travel, which has impacted the number of foreign workers accepted," an agency official said.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
