August 26, 2014

The government led by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in its growth strategy released in June suggested the utilization of more foreign workers through various policies, including a revision of the foreign trainee program. Trade unions and those working to protect foreign workers have expressed concern that the government intends to promote the use of foreign workers as cheap labor in order to solve Japan’s labor shortage problem.

The Industrial Trainee and Technical Internship Program is officially designed to help trainees from developing countries acquire industrial skills and techniques which contribute to their nation’s economic development. The program, however, is regarded by many as a hotbed of sweatshop-like labor practices and human rights violations. Even the U.S. Department of State has designated the existing labor practices under the program as “forced labor”.

Prime Minister Abe plans to expand the program to cover more job categories in which demand for labor would boom both at home and abroad.

The provision of care for the aged is one of the categories to be included in the expanded program.

Data of the government’s social welfare council indicates that in 2025 the elderly care industry will need to hire one million more workers. At present, however, the harsh working conditions and low wages of care workers have resulted in a labor shortage in the industry. The average monthly earning of nursing-care workers, for example, is 218,400 yen while that of all workers stands at 325,600 yen. Compared with the all-industry average job turnover rate of 14.4%, the elderly care industry has a turnover rate of 16.1%.

An official of the Japan Federation of Medical Workers’ Unions (Iroren) said, “Improvement of care workers’ working conditions is the only way to overcome the industry’s labor shortage. If the industry brings in foreign nationals instead of make efforts to increase wages to attract workers, the present poor working conditions will continue.”

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The labor ministry has announced that as of October 31, 2013, 710,000 foreign nationals are employed in Japan.

Secretary general of the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan (SMJ), which works on the issue of foreign workers, Torii Ippei said, “Foreign workers are vital for Japanese society. The most essential thing is to employ foreign workers in compliance with Japan’s labor laws.”

Past related article:
> Abe’s attempt to increase use of foreign trainees will lead to further deterioration of their human rights [May 25, 2014]
> Construction sector labor shortage should be solved through drastic improvement of working environment [May 25, 2014]