Photo/Illutration A building that houses the health ministry in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

More than 80 percent of foreign technical trainees and specified skilled workers in Japan sent money to their home countries last year, a labor ministry survey showed.

The figure is significantly higher than the rate among non-Japanese workers with other residency statuses.

The ministry’s survey on the employment of foreign workers in 2024 was released on Aug. 29.

It received valid responses from 3,623 workplaces and 11,568 workers nationwide as of the end of September that year.

The ministry’s first survey on foreign workers was conducted in 2023.

The 2024 survey asked workers for the first time whether they sent money to their homelands.

Overall, 54.8 percent said they did.

The ratios shot up to 83.5 percent among technical interns and 81.6 percent of specified skilled workers.

The technical intern training program is aimed at helping people from developing nations acquire skills they can use after returning to their homelands.

Under the specified skilled worker program, foreigners are accepted as workers in industries with labor shortages.

Overall, foreign workers sent an average of 1.043 million yen ($7,080) to their home countries in 2024, according to the survey.

The average amount was 1.233 million yen for technical interns and 1.063 million yen for specified skilled workers.

When asked about who received the money, 83 percent of all respondents cited their parents and siblings, followed by their spouses and children at 16.1 percent, and other relatives at 9 percent.

They were allowed to choose multiple answers.

The survey also showed that 10.9 percent of all foreign workers have faced troubles, such as their working conditions and “introduction fees” they paid to dispatching agencies in their homelands to enter the Japanese government programs.

“We were able to confirm in numbers the actual conditions that had been pointed out in the past,” said Hideki Ando, head of the Foreign Workers’ Affairs Division at the ministry. “We will consider countermeasures as we listen to opinions from experts, workers and employers so that Japan will become a nation that is chosen (by foreign workers).”