Gratitude Factory

Effective April 2019, the new specified skills visa or "tokutei ginou" visa, 特定技能 will be implemented in Japan as a solution to the ongoing workforce crisis. That implies that there will be a significant increase in demand for foreign workers approximately 260,000 to 340,000 from April 2019 up to the year 2024. This means that the new specified skills visa will greatly impact the company/ business production with their financial growth. On the other hand, this also means more chances of employment for foreign skilled workers and professionals who want to work in Japan.

Overview of the Program

In December 2018, an extraordinary session of the Diet passed and enacted “the Act on Amending the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act and the Ministry of Justice Establishment Law”. The main purpose of this act was to establish “Specified Skilled Worker” as a new residency status. It will be possible for industries that are experiencing extreme labor shortages to accept foreign human resources as　specified skilled workers as of April 1, 2019.

Under the program relating to the Specified Skilled Worker residency status, businesses, including small and medium scale businesses, in industries that are having difficulty in recruiting human resources despite the efforts made to raise productivity and recruit domestic human resources, will be permitted to hire the foreign nationals who possess certain specialized knowledge or skills and will be immediately able to work in order to respond to extreme labor shortages.

Why does Japan’s Cabinet so eager to implement such a bill?

primary reason is that Japan nowadays is suffering from labor shortages. If this issue won’t be resolved as soon as possible, Japan will indeed experience an economic crisis. How serious is it? Take a look at the chart below.

overview of the Program

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs “Labor Force Survey Annual Report”