Tokyo to actively recruit nursing care staff from S-E Asia

Japan's Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry will actively promote the recruitment of nursing care staff from Southeast Asia from fiscal year 2025, to cope with the serious labour shortage in the industry.

It will shoulder part of the costs that Japanese nursing care operators incur when recruiting staff in the region and will set up a nursing care education programme in Indonesia.

With more elderly people expected to need care in Japan's increasingly ageing society, the ministry deemed it necessary to make strategic efforts to bring in human resources from elsewhere.

About one in five people in Japan will be aged 75 or over in 2025. There are currently about 2.15 million nursing care workers, but there will be an estimated shortage of about 250,000 workers in 2026 and about 570,000 in 2040.

According to the Immigration Services Agency, 28,400 foreign nationals entered Japan with specified skilled worker visa status as at the end of 2023 to work in the nursing care industry. That figure is just over 50 per cent of the government's target.