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Last Updated: Oct 15, 2008 - 12:21:24 PM |
Japan has essentially not accepted unskilled workers in those areas,
but the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) now argues the
country should introduce "medium-skilled" workers, the group said in a
report.
The transport and fishery industries should also be opened to foreign
labor, Keidanren said.
The federation argued that Japan should accept unskilled workers as
well as recruit more foreign students and provide social infrastructure
to encourage immigrants to stay for a long time. It said this can be
accomplished through such measures as stabilizing their legal status
and helping them study Japanese.
Keidanren, like the government, has until now welcomed only
high-skilled foreign workers, including information technology
engineers, office professionals and language teachers.
The proposal underlines the serious labor shortage facing Japan.
The population, now at 128 million, is estimated to drop by about 30
percent to roughly 90 million in 50 years. By that time there will be
1.3 persons in the 15-64 age bracket tor each person aged 65 or older,
compared with 3.3 in 2005.
"The business circle is deeply worried about the aging population,"
Keidanren Managing Director Masakazu Kubota said.
The government, facing rising demand and an acute shortage of welfare
labor, has started accepting limited numbers of medical workers. Under
an agreement with Indonesia, Japan accepted 208 Indonesian nurses and
caregivers in August.
That is far from enough, Keidanren said. The federation projected that
the nation's nurse and caregiver shortage will hit 1.8 million by 2055.
In addition to medium-skilled laborers, Japan may have to open up to
unskilled foreign workers, too, some experts say, but Keidanren
executives are divided on this stance, Kubota said.
The federation's recommendations are part of proposals it will soon
present to the government, the Liberal Democratic Party and the
Democratic Party of Japan, and other organizations.
Proposals in the Keidanren report, titled "How the economy and society
facing a decreasing population should be," include promoting research
and development, increasing preschools, supporting working mothers and
reinforcing education, all of which the federation has been
recommending for years.
While the federation did not specify how many immigrants or foreign
students should be welcomed and by what date, its recommendations
basically mirror those compiled in June by LDP lawmakers headed by then
Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa.
Both urge that Japan encourage immigrants to become long-term residents.
Nakagawa's proposals say Japan should accept 10 million immigrants, or
10 percent of Japan's estimated population in 50 years, and increase
the number of foreign students to 1 million by 2025 from 130,000 at
present.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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