“Without a doubt, the working environment now accepts foreigners to a greater degree than before,” said Taro Ioneyama, an employee of the ministry's labor policy department, at a briefing. At the same time, the number of people working illegally in Japan, according to ministry estimates, is about 1.5% of the total number of officially employed.
Even now, Japanese laws allow foreigners to be hired exclusively for special positions, such as foreign language teachers, cooks preparing dishes of their ethnic cuisine, and, more recently, engineers in the information technology field.
However, both from outside the country and from within, pressure is being exerted on Japan to finally open its labor market to the world, the ministry's report says. Proponents of such a decision point out that migrant workers will mitigate the impact of Japan's aging society. By 2020, 25% of Japanese will have reached the age of 65 or older, making the country one of the most rapidly aging. According to calculations by the Japanese Ministry of Justice, the number of workers will shrink by 10% by 2025, that is, by 60 million people, which will lead to a 6% decline in the country's GDP.