- 14 Mar 2002
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According to a survey conducted by Zenken, 45.5% of the responding Japanese companies said they are interested in employing foreign nationals, while 35% said they are not. Unfortunately, the survey did not break down the results by industry.
Of the companies interested in foreign workers, 68.1% cited their main reason to be a desire to secure talented employees. Among other reasons, business operations that require foreign language skills were cited by 46.2% of respondents, and labor shortages by 42.9%. Around 30% said they want to strengthen their overseas connections or launch new businesses. Of the companies that were not interested in foreign workers, 33% said they have no system to accept such workers. Other reasons included having never hired such workers before (29.4%) and having enough employees already (27.5%). Of the companies interested in hiring foreign nationals, clerical or managerial positions were cited by 45.1% of respondents. Sales positions were mentioned by 24.2%, while engineers and specialists were cited by 22%. Nearly 60% of the companies with an interest in hiring foreign nationals said they plan to do so within a year.
45% of Japan firms interested in hiring foreign nationals: survey
Clerical and managerial positions were cited most, followed by salespeople, engineers and specialists.
www.japantimes.co.jp