News Japan's foreign workers see largest year-on-year increase

By type of residency status, professional and technical fields, which include manufacturing engineers and care workers, ranked first with a 20.6% rise to 710,000. The number of foreigners in the specified skilled worker program climbed 49.4% to 200,000. People on the technical intern training program, which brings relatively unskilled workers to the country to learn new skills, grew 14.1% to 470,000. By nationality, Vietnam accounted for 24.8% of the total with 570,000, followed by China with 400,000, and the Philippines with 240,000. "Workers from Southeast Asia are choosing Japan over South Korea, Taiwan and other places due to factors like visa programs and public safety," said a labor ministry official. The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training estimated last year that there would be 2.3 million to 2.36 million foreign workers in 2025. The most recent figure of 2.3 million in October shows that the actual numbers are trending slightly above estimates.

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