In a major shift for a country long closed to immigrants, Japan is looking to allow foreigners in certain blue-collar jobs to stay indefinitely starting as early as the 2022 fiscal year, a justice ministry official said on Thursday.
Under a law that took effect in 2019, a category of "specified skilled workers" in 14 sectors such as farming, construction and sanitation have been allowed to stay for up to five years, but without their family members.
Immigration has long been taboo in Japan as many prize ethnic homogeneity, but pressure has mounted to open up its borders due to an acute labour shortage given its dwindling and ageing population. The 2019 law was meant to attract some 345,000 "specified skilled workers" over five years, but the intake has hovered at around 3,000 per month before the COVID-19 pandemic sealed the borders, according to government data.
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