Photo/Illutration Tourists wait for taxis in front of JR Kyoto Station in November 2022. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Japan is preparing to add four new fields to its “specified skilled worker” visa to address labor shortages in especially hard-hit industries, government sources said.

This, they said, would pave way for non-Japanese working as taxi drivers and across the rail system.

The four fields under consideration are: road transportation, railways, forestry and the timber industry, the sources said.

These would be in addition to 12 existing fields for the Type 1 specified skilled worker visa, which include construction, accommodation and food service.

Specifically, officials expect applications to work as bus, taxi and truck drivers in the road transportation field. In the railway field, foreign nationals would be eligible to work as train drivers, conductors, station attendants and railcar builders.

The proposed fields represent the first additions since the new status of residence was created in 2019 to address labor shortages.

Additions only require revisions to ministry ordinances and other rules, not amendments to laws.

Transportation industry officials fear that stricter regulations on overtime hours to be introduced in April could aggravate shortages of bus, taxi and truck drivers.

The government aims to promote a modal shift to transportation by rail and ship, but the railway industry is also short of manpower, ranging from train drivers and station attendants to maintenance crews for track repairs and railcars.

“Japanese people will not apply even if we try to recruit them,” said a representative of a private-sector railway operator.

The government also plans to expand the range of jobs included in two existing industry fields: manufacture of food and beverages and production of industrial machinery and other equipment, the sources said.

The former field is expected to include preparing cooked meals sold at supermarkets. Textile, printing and other operations are expected to be added to the latter.

The number of non-Japanese workers in Japan totaled 2,048,675 as of October, up 12.4 percent from a year earlier and exceeding the 2 million mark for the first time, according to labor ministry figures released Jan. 26.

Those on the specified skilled worker visa reached 138,518, up 59,464 from the previous year.

When the specified skilled worker visa was introduced in 2019, the government estimated that a maximum of 345,150 people would arrive in Japan over five years with the new status of residence.

The maximum stay is five years for the Type 1 specified skilled worker visa.

Shohei Sugita, a lawyer familiar with foreign labor issues, said the number of people expected over five years could exceed 500,000 if the four proposed fields are added.

The government plans to announce by the end of March its projection for the number of people expected over the next five years.

(This article was written by Makoto Oda and Kazumichi Kubota.)

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