Japan Seen Accepting Up to 340,000 Foreign Workers over 5 Years

Tokyo, Nov. 13 (Jiji Press)--Japan is seen accepting up to 340,000 foreign workers over the five years since planned revisions to the immigration control law take effect, government sources said Tuesday. In fiscal 2019, the first year, the number of foreign workers to be accepted under two planned visa categories is projected at between 33,000 and 47,000, according to the sources. Over the five years, the cumulative number is expected to reach between 260,000 and 340,000, the sources said. The estimates will be officially released Wednesday. These numbers are based on estimates that Japan will be over 600,000 workers short in fiscal 2019, which starts next April, a number likely to expand to 1.3 million to 1.35 million in five years. At a plenary meeting of the House of Representatives, which marked the start of parliamentary debates on the revisions, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government will shortly release its official industry-by-industry estimates on the number of foreign workers to be accepted. Abe made it clear that the government will regard the estimated numbers of foreign workers as "upper limits" on the issuance of new work visas. Amid deepening labor shortages, the Abe administration is eager to introduce the new visa categories in April 2019 by enacting a bill to revise the immigration control law during the ongoing extraordinary Diet session, currently slated to end Dec. 10. However, opposition parties are demanding thorough Diet deliberations on the bill, accusing the government of being slow to prepare domestic systems for a surge in foreign workers. The bill calls for establishing the two visa categories for foreign workers with type one designated skills, including blue-collar workers, and those with higher type two skills. Type one visa holders will be allowed to stay in Japan for up to five years in total but will not be permitted to bring their families with them. The government is considering limiting the acceptance of type one workers to 14 industries including the construction and farming sectors. Type two holders will be entitled to stay longer and bring their spouses and children. END