Japan opens the door to more labor migration

The Japanese government on Friday tabled a legislative proposal on increasing immigration, which sometimes involves a historic shift.

The initiative is controversial in a country that has still not been able to open its borders to migrants.

The proposal is based on It will be easier for employers in industries suffering from a lack of manpower to bring in low-skilled workers from outside. There are dozens of sectors, according to Reuters, according to agriculture, hotels, construction and care.

Many Japanese celebrate the ethnic homogeneity of the country. Immigration has long been almost taboo.

But it is at the same time a fact that the population is aging rapidly. The birth rate is among the lowest in the industrialized world and the proportion of people of working age is decreasing.

It's like business pressed for opening. Labor shortages are beginning to be severe.

There are certainly foreigners living and working in the country, but the proportion is much lower than in Western Europe, the United States and Australia. Foreign-born people account for about 2% of the labor force, or nearly 1.3 million people.

According to media estimates, the new law would increase by half a million.

Although resistance has been Even within its own liberal-democratic party, the PDL, Prime Minister Shinzo Abu's proposal will likely pass through parliament.

LDP members supported the bill after a heated internal debate. Many said they feared an increase in crime when more foreigners arrived. It was also feared that wages would be depressed.

In opposition, the criticism was rather that the bill had been pushed too fast without the rights of foreign workers being guaranteed.

Shinzo Abe assured the conservative pretends in his party to say that this is not the beginning of a reorganization aimed at opening borders. Some experts believe it.

"I think it's a de facto change to an immigration policy," said Reuters the former president of the Tokyo immigration authority, Hidenori Sakanaka. .

The measures show that about as many Japanese support the increase in labor immigration that opposes it.

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