• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

Why Can’t Japan Allow Large-Scale Immigration to Solve Labor Shortage Problem?

Robert Dekle by Robert Dekle
01/16/19
in Opinion
Japan, Tokyo

While accepting more immigrants would be good for Japan's economy, the nation is reluctant. Photo: AFP

43
SHARES
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

In Japan today, there are 1.6 openings for each job applicant. Dozens of firms fail every month because of a lack of workers. With birthrates continuing to stagnate, the nation’s productive age population has declined by 13 percent from its peak in 1995 to 76 million in 2017. This number is forecasted to fall below 70 million by 2030 and 60 million in 2040. In mature growing economies, the productive population should be growing at about 1 percent per year, so Japan’s should be about 108 million, 42 percent higher than it currently is. This shortfall will only continue to widen.

While more women and elderly are joining the workforce, the labor shortage is especially acute in the unskilled and semi-skilled sectors, such as in bars and restaurants, personal care and cleaning services, retail, manufacturing, and construction. Because of poor conditions, Japanese women and the elderly do not want to work these jobs.

Graph showing the increasing proportion of elderly in the Japanese population

Faced with the shortage, Japan has rapidly increased the number of foreign workers, which reached a record 1.3 million in 2017, nearly double of that in 2012.

In addition, the country’s parliament recently passed a bill to raise the number of visas granted to unskilled and semi-skilled workers by about 500,000 by 2025. Since about half of these visas will go to foreign student trainees already working in Japan, even under the new bill, the net increase in foreign workers will only be about 50,000 a year for the next five years.

This increase is woefully inadequate. In earlier work, I calculated that just to maintain Japan’s productive population, the country will need to admit at least 400,000 immigrants a year for the foreseeable future.

Allowing More Immigrants

To appreciably grow its GDP to say 2.5 percent a year, Japan will need to admit 800,000 immigrants a year. The United States, with 2.5 times Japan’s population, has in the past admitted about 2 million legal and illegal immigrants a year. If Japan had the will and acted like the U.S., the country could solve its present and future labor shortage problem simply by allowing more immigrants.

However, I argue below that despite the obvious benefits for Japan’s economic growth, there are nearly insurmountable barriers for mass unskilled or semi-skilled immigration into Japan.

These barriers exist only for unskilled worker immigration on a large scale. More so than any country in the world, Japan today welcomes professional and highly skilled immigrants as permanent residents or citizens. In fact, if one is a highly skilled engineer, doctor, professor, tennis or soccer player, business person or investor, it is much easier and faster to become a Japanese citizen than a U.S. citizen.

The barriers to unskilled mass immigration into Japan are not economic, but political, cultural, and historical.

Weak Corporate Sector

First, Japan is essentially a socialist-democratic country, so compared to the U.S., the corporate sector in Japan is politically weak, even under a pro-business administration such as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Photo: AFP

Policies that redistribute resources away from the Japanese population will almost certainly fail. While cheap labor imported into Japan will clearly raise corporate profits and stock market prices, the new immigrants will depress the wages of competing Japanese workers. Furthermore, they will put strains on local government finances needed to provide public services to the immigrants such as education and healthcare.

Immigration will redistribute income and social benefits away from the existing Japanese population to shareholders, business managers, and immigrants. This redistribution is politically unacceptable.

Little Public Support

Second, in Japan, there is almost no constituency that supports large scale low-skilled immigration, except for business.

In the U.S., the political left is strongly in favor of immigration, giving humanitarian arguments that the U.S. is an immigrant country and immigrants have a right to escape from repressive political regimes at home or deserve a better economic future in the U.S.

In Japan, those on the political left with humanitarian concerns have weakened support for immigration, saying that immigrants are exploited with low wages and inadequate benefits and job protections. If these humanitarian concerns prevailed, immigrants will be so expensive that Japanese businesses will not hire them.

Adjusting to Japanese Culture

Third, the Japanese view immigrants, especially the lower wage kind, as not attuned to the nuances of Japanese culture. Cultural missteps ranging from not properly sorting garbage according to combustibles and non-combustibles, talking too loudly on trains, being immodest in attitude, and other violations of spoken and unspoken Japanese etiquette represent an insult to the average Japanese.

In Japan you are not supposed to have loud conversations in public transport.
In public transport, you are not supposed to have loud conversations. Photo: AFP

While there are numerous foreigners who throughout many years of focused attention have learned the Japanese language and managed to adopt these cultural norms and become well-liked members of society, many immigrants, especially those who do not plan to live in Japan for long, ignore the norms and are eventually disdained and outcasted.

In the U.S., immigrant communities exist where immigrants can survive separately from the dominant U.S. culture. In Japan, however, immigrant communities are sparse and discouraged by the authorities because the communities delay assimilation.

Japan is No Immigrant Country

Fundamentally, unlike the U.S., Japan is not historically an immigrant country. Since the 5th-century – when numerous Koreans fled to Japan amid political turmoil on the peninsula – very few foreigners settled in Japan.

There is no sense among the Japanese that unskilled or semi-skilled immigrants have helped improve Japanese culture, institutions, or the economy. Unlike in the U.S., where one’s parents or grandparents are often from other countries, almost all Japanese have ancestors that have lived in Japan for over a millennium.

If Japan allowed say 400,000 immigrants a year, I earlier estimated that by 2050, perhaps a third of Japan’s population will be immigrants or children of immigrants. In Japan, such a high fraction of immigrants and their offspring would simply be unnatural. From the perspective of most Japanese, such a high immigrant country will no longer be “Japan.”

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
Share43Tweet
Robert Dekle

Robert Dekle

Professor of Economics at USC University, Southern California

Related Posts

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference
World

Japan PM to Replace Foreign and Defense Ministers: Reports

by Staff Writer
September 12, 2023
Toru Kubota
Media Freedom

Myanmar Junta Charges Japanese Journalist With Encouraging Dissent

by Staff Writer
August 4, 2022
migrants
Refugees

Hundreds of Rescued Migrants Disembark in Italy’s Sicily

by Staff Writer
December 29, 2021
Japan
Business

Mother to Sue Japanese Production Firms Over Netflix Suicide Case

by Staff Writer
December 20, 2021
migrants
Refugees

Four Migrants Dead, 21 Missing Off Coast of Spain

by Staff Writer
October 15, 2021
A man wearing a mask passes the logo of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games displayed on the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building on March 19, 2020.
Featured

Olympic Denial: The Last Plea to Stop the ‘IOC Pandemic Games’

by Neilton Ferreira Junior and Jorge Knijnik
October 26, 2021
Next Post
A Uighur vendor pushes his cart of watermelons past Chinese soldiers on patrol in Urumqi in northwest China's Xinjiang province

Cultural Genocide in Xinjiang: How China Targets Uyghur Artists, Academics, and Writers

Richard Ojeda 2020

Beating Trump in Rural America: An Interview With 2020 Presidential Candidate Richard Ojeda

Recommended

Tens of thousands of protestors shut down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, April 5, 2025, protesting the Trump administration's abuse of the separation of federal powers as well as the deep cuts to governmental services overseen by presidential advisor Elon Musk.

Civil Society Is Holding the Line. Will Washington Notice?

June 17, 2025
An Iranian walking in front of a wall painting of the Iranian flag in Tehran

How Much Damage Has Israel Inflicted on Iran’s Nuclear Program?

June 16, 2025
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on November 19, 2017

Israel MPs to Vote on Opposition Bid to Dissolve Parliament

June 11, 2025
Two protesters wave Mexican flags while standing on a vandalized Waymo vehicle during a demonstration in Los Angeles, California, on June 8, 2025, following a series of aggressive federal immigration operations in the city.

Unrest in Los Angeles Over Immigration Raids as Troops Sent by Trump Fan Out

June 9, 2025
US President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on August 4, 2020. Photo: Drew Angerer/AFP.

US Steel, Aluminum Tariff Hikes to Take Effect Wednesday: W. House

June 4, 2025
textile workers in Kenya

Workers’ Rights in ‘Free Fall’ Globally: Report

June 2, 2025

Opinion

Tens of thousands of protestors shut down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, April 5, 2025, protesting the Trump administration's abuse of the separation of federal powers as well as the deep cuts to governmental services overseen by presidential advisor Elon Musk.

Civil Society Is Holding the Line. Will Washington Notice?

June 17, 2025
A Black Lives Matter mural in New York City.

Fuhgeddaboudit! America’s Erasure of History

April 2, 2025
Bust of Deputy Rubens Paiva in the Chamber of Deputies

Democratic Brazilians Are Still Here

March 18, 2025
A woman from Guatemala

Dispatch From Central America

January 28, 2025
US President Donald Trump

Dear Trump Supporters: Is This the America You Wanted?

January 28, 2025
Putin talks to Trump in Hamburg

From Roosevelt to Trump: The Complicated Legacy of Personal Diplomacy

November 15, 2024
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post