Jobs
Japan’s Foreign Worker Tally Tops Two Million For First Time
Construction workers increased by 24% over the previous year, the largest hike for any industry.
Photographer: Keith Bedford/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Japan’s foreign worker population broke the two million mark for the first time ever, underlining the nation’s growing reliance on external manpower to mitigate its deepening labor shortage.
The number of foreign workers in Japan reached about 2.05 million as of October 2023, the most on record, the Labor Ministry reported Friday. The number grew by 12.4% from a year earlier, an acceleration compared with recent years but slower than in some years prior to the pandemic.