Rojjanakoul Natcha and Sartsri Rakkana say they love working in Japan, but not just because they earn enough to send part of their monthly pay back to their families in Thailand.

They came to Japan under a program targeting Southeast Asian nations that was initiated by Fukui Prefecture to proactively deal with an anticipated shortage of elderly care workers.

The prefecture covers the education costs and holds online sessions to help applicants get a feel for what they will face in Japan. To ease the transition, the prefecture hires interpreters to provide support to successful candidates once they are here.

The two Thai technical interns who arrived in Fukui Prefecture in June last year work at the Ono Wakoen retirement home in Fukui.

“Our residents are really happy with them because they are so cheerful and go about their duties with such enthusiasm,” said Hiroshi Shimizu, an executive at the retirement home facility. “They are now indispensable. We have faced great difficulties finding staff even though a local senior high school has a welfare course for students.”

The facility plans to accept two more interns from Thailand this autumn.

“While there are some difficulties, there are far more enjoyable aspects,” Natcha, 20, said. “Although I know almost no local dialect, the other workers explain the dialect to me.”

For her part, Rakkana, 22, said, “This is a very enjoyable job for me because I love to talk with people. I feel very safe in Ono because it is a quiet community.”

TRAINING PROGRAM IN THAILAND

The two women are in Fukui now because the prefectural government began a training program from fiscal 2021 at a senior high school in Kanchanaburi, western Thailand.

With a local foundation serving as an intermediary, the Fukui prefectural government began dispatching instructors in the Japanese language as well as elderly care workers to the high school to show students the ropes.

Supplementary courses are also offered to enable the students to gain enough Japanese to pass the language proficiency test that is a requirement to enter the technical intern training program.

The Fukui prefectural government pays the tuition for the courses in elderly care while  the facility that accepts the technical interns pays for their airfare to Japan.

So far, 24 Thais have come to work in Japan under the program, according to Fukui prefectural officials.

The prefectural government set up a similar course in Myanmar from February.

Those interested in possibly working in Fukui take special courses from local instructors on the Fukui culture and dialect as well as other aspects of the prefecture facing the Sea of Japan, which faces harsh winters.

Online sessions are also set up with Myanmarese already working in elderly care in Japan so the students can get a better idea of what’s in store for them.

The Fukui prefectural government felt forced to look outside Japan because it faces a chronic shortage in elderly care workers.

In March, there were 4.12 job openings in the elderly care sector for every individual seeking work in the field. The figure is well above the average for all job sectors in the prefecture.

According to a central government estimate, Japan’s elderly population will reach a peak in 2040. Published figures show that an estimated 36.23 million people in Japan were aged 65 or older in September last year while 12.59 million people, or 10 percent of the total population, were aged 80 or older.

The Fukui prefectural government reckons it will need 180 new elderly care workers every year from now on.

It set aside around 36 million yen ($231,000) in this fiscal year’s budget to foster foreign workers in elderly care.

“We want to aggressively accept foreign workers by building relations with as many nations as possible,” said Katsuhiro Minowa, a prefectural government official in the health and welfare department.

As of last October there were 11,796 elderly care workers in Fukui. Of that number, 470 foreign workers were employed at 181 facilities in the prefecture. That is basically double the 243 foreign workers who were at 109 facilities in 2021.

CAUSE FOR CONCERN

The central government has submitted legislation to the current Diet session to revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law to replace the much criticized technical intern training program with a new visa status.

Those receiving the proposed “ikusei shuro” (training work) visa will be able to change workplace after one to two years. Currently, this is permitted only after three years.

Facilities accepting foreign workers in Fukui fear the change will result in an exodus to urban areas offering higher pay.

To ensure this does not happen, even if the law is changed, the Fukui prefectural government set up an organization to accept new foreign workers along with the prefectural social welfare association. The new organization will hire Thai interpreters to support foreign workers who come to Fukui.

“We want to be involved from the very beginning in order to build credibility and trust by looking after the foreign workers so we can keep them,” said a prefectural official.

SCHOOLS ACCEPTING MORE STUDENTS

Vocational schools for those interested in a career in elderly care are also seeing an increase in the number of foreign students.

According to the Japan Association of Training Institutions for Certified Care Workers, there were just 17 foreign students in such institutions around Japan in fiscal 2014.

In fiscal 2023, the figure had shot up to 1,802. Foreign students now make up about 30 percent of new enrollment.

A key factor was the nursing care visa issued in 2017 that meant certified care workers could remain in Japan indefinitely.

The Department of Nursing Care and Welfare at the Alice Academy in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Fukui’s neighbor, accepted 54 students in its two-year program this spring.

A record 49 students were from Indonesia, Nepal and elsewhere. Thirty-seven of the 41 graduating foreign students in the department passed the national certified care worker test held in January.

One graduate is Bui Thi Tuyet Tan, 22. She has been working at a care facility in Hakui, Ishikawa Prefecture, since April.

“In order for senior citizens to continue living in neighborhoods they are long familiar with, I want to accompany them on drives to where they want to go as well as help them with their shopping,” she said.