New law boosts foreign workers

TOKYO — Japanese lawmakers approved legislation Saturday allowing hundreds of thousands of foreign laborers to live and work in a country that has long resisted accepting outsiders.

The contentious legislation passed only months after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed the plan despite opposition groups’ demand for more thorough debate to address concerns about a drastic change of policy.

It’s seen as an unavoidable step as the country’s population of about 126 million rapidly ages and shrinks. Many shorthanded industries, especially in the services sector, already rely heavily on foreign “trainees” and language students. Japan also selectively grants visas to white-collar professionals, often from the West.

Bringing in foreign laborers is a last resort after Abe’s deeply conservative government tried to meet labor shortages by encouraging more employment of women and older workers and using more robots and other automation.

“Japan has come to a point where we had to face the reality that there is serious depopulation and serious aging,” said Toshihiro Menju, an expert on foreign labor and population issues at the Japan Center for International Exchange. “Shortages of workers are so serious ... that (allowing) immigrants is the only option the government can take.”

Abe’s latest plan calls for relaxing Japan’s visa requirements in sectors facing severe labor shortages such as construction, nursing, farming, transport and tourism — new categories of jobs to be added to the current list of highly skilled professionals.

The number of foreign workers in Japan has more than doubled since 2000 to nearly 1.3 million last year, out of a working-age population of 67 million. The fastest growing group of foreign workers is Vietnamese.