By KOSUKE TAUCHI/ Staff Writer
April 27, 2022 at 15:15 JST
Inside a factory of Kioxia Holdings Corp., a semiconductor manufacturer, in Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture (Provided by Kioxia Holdings Corp.)
The central government will reorganize several visa categories for foreigners working in manufacturing to meet the strong demand for semiconductor chips amid the global shortage.
At an April 26 meeting, the Cabinet decided to fold three categories into one under the specified skills visa system.
The move will allow companies to hire more workers for certain job categories in high demand, but the overall limit of foreign workers under the program will stay the same.
The Industrial Machinery Industry category hit its cap of 5,250 workers at the end of February amid growing demand for industrial robots and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
However, many specified skills visas are still available in two other similar categories.
So, on April 26, the government decided to merge “Industrial Machinery Industry,” “Machine Parts and Tooling Industries,” and “Electric, Electronics and Information Industries” into one category called “Manufacturing” by the end of May, reducing the total number of categories from 14 to 12.
Businesses with foreign workers who hold a specified skills visa have been calling for the government to merge the three sectors on the basis that the jobs are similar.
The cap on the number of foreign workers in the new “Manufacturing” category will be 31,000, which is effectively the total cap for the three categories being rolled together.
The government will not, however, raise the specified skills visa system’s overall cap of 345,000.
Japan introduced the specified skills visa system in fiscal 2019 to alleviate chronic labor shortages in certain industries by expanding the number of foreign nationals allowed to work in the country.
Under the system, foreign workers can work in Japan for up to five years across a range of sectors--including agriculture, construction and nursing care.
Foreign workers have two ways to obtain the specified skills visa.
One route is to pass an exam that assesses Japanese language ability and requisite industry skills.
The other way is for applicants to complete the three-year technical intern training program in Japan and then change their visa status to specified skills.
Around 58,000 foreigners were working in Japan with the specified skills visa as of the end of February.
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