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

November 13, 2018

Tokyo--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 to total 47,000 at the most, according to the sources.

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.

Abe made it clear that the government will regard the estimated numbers 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, meanwhile, will be entitled to stay longer and bring their spouses and children.

In the day's Lower House meeting, Shiori Yamao of the major opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan requested the government submit data on its research into reasons for the disappearances of foreign technical trainees in Japan.

Abe said it is difficult to disclose the data because of privacy problems and expected negative effects on future research.

Yamao asked why Abe keeps saying that the new visa system does not represent a pro-immigration policy. Abe did not give a direct answer. Jiji Press