As businesses in Japan continue to stay they’re too short-staffed to meet market demands, immigration to Japan is accelerating. Despite the weak yen, more foreigners are now working here than ever before.
NHK reports that Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) reports that the country passed 2.3 million foreign workers last year. That’s the 12th straight year in a row that immigration to Japan has set a new record. The numbers come via Hello Work, a program for monitoring worker safety that requires mandatory reporting from all businesses that hire immigrants.
The majority of workers come from Vietnam (577,080), with Vietnamese representing one in every four workers. In second and third place are China (408,805) and the Philippines (245,565).
Myanmar, which is beset by a long civil war, saw the largest percentage increase of immigrants at 61%. Immigration from Indonesia also rose by 37%.
Overstays have dropped
Many commenters on Yahoo! News JP – which tends to lean right on such issues – expressed concerns about the number of immigrants, particularly from the “threat” posed by overstays. However, recent statistics from the government show the number of overstays dropping. As of July 2024, 77,935 people are projected to be in Japan illegally – a drop of 1.5% since January 2024.
Additionally, the majority of overstays aren’t workers. 48,383 people are projected to have overstayed short-term visitor visas. (Even that number dropped by 1,458 in July.) Only around 19,000 are people previously here on a work visa.
One of the largest causes of workers abandoning their jobs in Japan has been the technical trainee program, under which workers traditionally have few rights. Japan recently revised the program to make it somewhat easier for employees to leave and escape abusive situations.
As we’ve previously written, there is no evidence that foreign residents commit crimes in far greater numbers than native-born citizens.
The labor shortage, driven by the country’s declining population and stagnant wages, is driving employers to look for creative ways to fill the gap. Many combinis, for example, are relying on part-time work from foreign students.
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