By AYAKA KIBI/ Staff Writer
July 14, 2024 at 12:45 JST
An international caregiver offers assistance at a nursing home in Saitama Prefecture. Despite more care providers going out of business, demand for their services continues to rise. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Japan will face a shortfall of around 570,000 caregivers in fiscal 2040, when its elderly population is set to approach its peak, welfare ministry estimates showed.
The estimates released July 12 showed that 2.72 million caregivers will be needed in fiscal 2040.
In fiscal 2022, there were 2.15 million caregivers.
The estimates also showed that 2.4 million caregivers will be needed in fiscal 2026, meaning there will be a shortage of 250,000.
The ministry compiled the number of caregivers that the nation’s 47 prefectural governments, including Tokyo and Hokkaido, estimated they would need to coincide with a review of the long-term care insurance system, which is undertaken once every three years.
The Tokyo metropolitan government, for example, estimates that 258,000 caregivers will be needed in fiscal 2040, compared with 182,000 in fiscal 2022.
The projected nationwide shortage in fiscal 2040 was smaller than a previous estimate in fiscal 2021, which showed that 2.8 million caregivers, or around 690,000 more than in fiscal 2019, would be needed.
Welfare ministry officials said the percentage of elderly people certified as “requiring long-term care” fell due to efforts to prevent long-term frailty and that the estimated number of required caregivers declined as a result.
Even so, Japan is not out of the woods as it faces severe labor shortages.
According to estimates by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research and other sources, the productive-age population, or those between 15 and 64, will decline from 73.95 million in 2023 to 62.13 million in 2040.
The number of elderly people aged 65 or older is estimated to increase from 36.23 million to 39.28 million over the same period.
The nursing care industry has been losing workers due to lower average wages and other reasons.
The welfare ministry plans to secure workers by improving working conditions, preventing turnover and accepting foreign care workers.
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