Two from Japan-Forward. First up the headliner, May 19:
As Japan's care homes turn to foreign workers, language training and integration are becoming essential to preserving trust and quality of care
"Chew slowly," said Kristin Barus (24) in Japanese, as she helped an elderly man with his meal at Dai-ni Shin-Yokohama Parkside Home, a special nursing home operated by the Yokohama-based social welfare corporation Senrikai. Bals, an Indonesian care worker, is now in her third year in Japan. Her Japanese has a slight accent, but she is clearly understood. The man accepted the tea she offered him and drank it with a calm, reassured expression.
Of the facility's 62 staff members, 40 are foreign nationals. "Without them, we simply could not keep this facility running," said director Yuko Makino.
"I love speaking Japanese, but kanji is hard," Bals said.
Her interest in Japanese culture led her to study the language as her second foreign language at nursing school in Indonesia. She came to Japan to work in a country with higher wages.
Now, she is preparing for the national certified care worker exam in January, as she hopes to keep living in Japan.
Filling the Labor Gap
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the number of people certified as needing long-term care or support continues to rise, reaching about 7.2 million in fiscal 2024. As of October 2024, Japan had around 2.12 million care workers, but the government estimates a shortage of about 250,000 in fiscal 2026."Care work still suffers from an image of low pay and tough working conditions," Makino said. "In reality, the gap with other industries is not that large, but that perception is hard to overcome."
"The people we want to hire simply aren't coming from the Japanese workforce," she added.
Foreign workers like Bals are helping to fill the gap. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, about 108,000 foreign nationals were working in welfare-related fields, including nursing care, as of the end of October 2025. That is 3.6 times more than five years earlier.
Four Pathways Into Japan
Japan has four separate pathways for accepting foreign care workers. They include programs under Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with certain countries; the "nursing care" residence status; the Technical Intern Training Program; and the specified skilled worker program....
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And May 22:
Food Sector Strains Under Foreign Worker Limit
Japan's food service sector was jolted in late March by a government decision to suspend new entries under the specified skilled worker program from April 13.
According to the Immigration Services Agency, the number of foreign residents working in food service had reached around 46,000 by the end of February. The figure was expected to exceed the government-set cap by around May, forcing companies across the sector to rethink their foreign hiring plans.
The category also covers companies that provide meals for hospitals and nursing care facilities. One major Tokyo-based meal service provider had accepted around 2,200 foreign workers as of the end of February. It had planned to bring in about 1,000 more in fiscal 2025 and roughly the same number this fiscal year.
A company official said "food service" can sound like a nonessential industry centered on restaurants and leisure. "But it also includes meal services that are essential to the daily lives of patients and elderly people," the official said. "In regional hospitals and nursing care facilities, even when jobs are advertised, Japanese workers simply don't apply."
As emergency measures, the company is looking at ways to reduce staff turnover. It is also considering introducing prepared meals that can be served after heating or thawing.
Balancing Labor Needs and Political Pressure
The specified skilled worker program allows foreign nationals to work in industries facing severe labor shortages. It covers 16 sectors and is divided into two categories: Type 1, which allows workers to stay for up to five years, and Type 2, which applies to 11 sectors that require more advanced skills.Workers who move into the Type 2 category can bring family members to Japan and are no longer subject to a fixed upper limit on their period of stay.
According to the Immigration Services Agency, around 390,000 people were living in Japan under the system at the end of 2025, an increase of more than 100,000 from a year earlier. In fiscal 2026, three more sectors were added to the Type 1 category, bringing the total to 19 sectors.
The cap on acceptance is not based on simply totaling requests from each industry. Instead, the government estimates labor shortages by sector, subtracts the number of positions that could be filled through productivity gains and recruitment of domestic workers, and then treats the remaining shortfall as the shortfall to be covered by foreign labor.
In January, the Cabinet approved a combined acceptance cap of about 1.23 million people by the end of fiscal 2028 for the specified skilled worker program and the new Employment for Skill Development system, which is set to replace the technical intern training program in April 2027. According to a Liberal Democratic Party source, the cap could initially have been even higher. "I hear political pressure kept it down somewhat," the source said....
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Here's hoping that Western politicians and policy peeps are paying attention to Japan's experience. After all, most of our readers are going to be old.
Even if the hard science Laureate is correct.
For those who are younger, ummm:
Chilling warning from Nobel physicist as date is set for humanity's final destruction
Bummer kids.
Buy short-dated paper....
