Editorial Board
Japan Needs More People
A demographic crisis is looming, and tweaks to the country’s immigration system don’t go far enough.
Hope of the future.
Photographer: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty ImagesJapan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying hard to combat his nation’s alarming demographic decline: promoting robots and other productivity-enhancing technology, bringing more women into the workforce, even opening the door a bit wider to foreigners. It’s plain, however, that he needs to try harder still, especially when it comes to immigration.
Japanese companies already report they can’t find people to hire, and the future isn’t likely to get better -- government researchers expect the country’s population to fall by nearly a third by 2065, at which point nearly 40 percent will be senior citizens. There’ll be 1.3 workers for every person over the age of 65, compared to 2.3 in 2015.