Japan to Allow Foreigners to Engage in Home Care Services

From Jiji

March 22 2024

TOKYO – Japan’s welfare ministry proposed to an expert panel Friday a plan to conditionally allow foreigners to engage in home care services for the elderly.

Under the plan, aimed at expanding the scope of jobs available to such personnel and easing labor shortages in the sector, nursing offices that hire such foreign staff will be obliged to provide them with necessary training programs.

Currently, foreign technical intern trainees and foreign workers with so-called specified skills are allowed to work at care facilities in the country. They are banned from engaging in home help services to provider one-on-one assistance to users, however, due to concerns about their communication skills in Japanese.

The ministry will finalize the plan at a future meeting of the panel, hoping to lift the ban as early as fiscal 2024, starting in April.

Personnel shortages among home-visit nursing care service providers are particularly serious, with the ratio of effective job openings to seekers standing at 15.53 in fiscal 2022, according to the ministry. The home care worker population is also aging.