Japan needs an additional 700,000 aged care workers over the next 10 years alone. But Japan’s population is shrinking and nobody wants manual or low paid employment so they will need to import workers.

Foreign aged care workers will soon be offered three-year residency under its Technical Intern Training Program.

Japan has had bilateral partnership agreements for aged care workers since 2008 with Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam that requires training and national certification in Japanese language. This has been a failure with only 203 care workers passing exams.

The new program will be less demanding on qualifications, simply requiring some Japanese language proficiency.167,000 construction workers have already taken up the three-year residency program. Hair dressers are also being targeted.