Japan saw its biggest year-on-year jump in foreign workers since records began, government data showed Friday, as the country seeks to address labour shortages exacerbated by its ageing population.
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In October 2024, the nation’s foreign workforce stood at 2.3 million – an increase of around 254,000 people from a year earlier, labour ministry data showed.
That marks the biggest jump since records began in 2008, and is the latest in a series of annual record-breaking increases.
The total has jumped around threefold from a decade ago, in 2014, when the number of foreign workers stood at 788,000.
Japan has the world’s second-oldest population after Monaco, according to the World Bank, and its relatively strict immigration rules mean it faces growing labour shortages.
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Friday’s data showed Vietnamese, Chinese and Filipinos were the top three nationalities in Japan’s foreign labour force.