Human Resources: As its work force ages, Japan needs and fears Chinese labor

With one of the world's most rapidly aging populations and lowest birthrates, Japan is facing acute labor shortages not only in farming towns like Kawakami but also in fishing villages, factories, restaurants and nursing homes, and on construction sites.

Closed to immigration, Japan has admitted foreign workers through various loopholes, including employing growing numbers of foreign students as part-timers and temporary workers, like the Chinese here, as so-called foreign trainees.

But that unofficial supply route has left some businesses continually scrambling for a dependable work force and the foreigners vulnerable to abuse. With Japan's population projected to decline steeply over the next decades, the failure to secure a steady work force could harm the nation's long-term economic competitiveness.

The labor shortage has grown serious enough that a group of influential politicians in the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party recently released a report calling for the admission of 10 million immigrants in the next 50 years.

Republished permission of FOCUS Information Agency

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Published by Mike Hitchen, Mike Hitchen Consulting