A Myanmar worker chops nozawana greens in preparation for lunch for residents of an intensive care home for the elderly in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, on May 28, 2026. (Mainichi/Ai Yokota)
ODAWARA, Kanagawa — Japan halted the new intake in April of foreign workers under the Specified Skilled Worker (i) status of residence for the food service sector, sending ripples through a restaurant industry already facing severe labor shortages.
At Yoko no Sono, an intensive care home for the elderly in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, located up a mountain road by car from Iriuda Station on the Hakone Tozan Railway, two workers from Myanmar were preparing lunch for 120 residents alongside other staff in the kitchen. They carefully cut nozawana greens, bacon and other ingredients.
Nine cooking staff members work there. The two from Myanmar, aged 25 and 34, are employed under the Specified Skilled Worker (i) status for the food service industry, a program that accepts foreign workers in sectors facing serious labor shortages. Many workers under this status are employed at restaurants, izakaya pubs and similar establishments, but they also play an important role in meal services at hospitals and welfare facilities across Japan.
Of the seven Japanese staff members, three are in their 70s. Meals for residents are prepared three times a day. One staff member in their 70s recently left, and Kei Kato, chairperson of Chojukai, the social welfare corporation that runs the facility, said, “Ideally, we would want at least three more cooking workers.”
Two Myanmar workers prepare lunch for residents of an intensive care home for the elderly in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, on May 28, 2026. (Mainichi/Ai Yokota)
According to Kato, the labor shortage has become increasingly pronounced since the start of the Reiwa era in 2019. Until then, when the facility advertised openings, it could hire Japanese workers in their 40s and 50s, but applications stopped coming.
Hoping to recruit reliable young workers, Kato visited Myanmar in August 2022 through a staffing agency and interviewed one of the Myanmar workers now employed at the facility, as well as another candidate. He also held discussions with the facility’s Japanese staff and prepared to welcome foreign workers by creating Myanmar-language care-meal instructions. Later, two more Myanmar workers joined the kitchen staff, including the other employee who is still working there today. At one point, four Myanmar nationals were working in the kitchen.
A 52-year-old male registered dietitian at the facility said, “At first, we had concerns about cultural differences and other issues, but they are hardworking and study diligently. We have had no trouble with them whatsoever.”
But in spring 2025, two foreign workers left in succession. One took a job at a restaurant chain in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Kato tried to persuade the worker to stay but was told, “I eventually want to open a restaurant in Myanmar.” Kato said, “We work behind the scenes to support the care front line. If someone has a dream, we cannot stop them.”
At that point, Kato said, there was still “no sense of crisis.” He thought new foreign workers would eventually come. At the same time, the facility continued recruiting Japanese workers, but the three Japanese people it had managed to hire since the end of last year were all in their 70s. Working in the kitchen involves physical labor, such as lifting large stockpots. In addition, preparing meals for care facility residents requires specialized cooking methods, leaving workers with a great deal to learn. All three quit within two months, citing reasons such as, “My body can’t keep up” and “I can’t get used to the work.”
Kei Kato, chairperson of the social welfare corporation Chojukai, calls for resuming new admissions under the Specified Skilled Worker (i) program for the food service industry, saying that meal services at care facilities also rely on foreign workers, in this photo taken in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, on May 28, 2026. (Mainichi/Ai Yokota)
Then, on March 27 this year, just as the facility was facing that situation, the government abruptly announced it would stop the new intake under the Specified Skilled Worker (i) status for the food service sector. In January, the government set the total “expected number of workers to be accepted” under the Specified Skilled Worker (i) program across 19 fields from fiscal 2024 through the end of fiscal 2028 at 805,700. Of that total, 50,000 were allocated to food service, but the field was quickly projected to exceed its “ceiling.”
Kato grew anxious. The government set April 12 as the deadline for new applications for certificates of eligibility. He asked the staffing agency to “move forward as much as possible” and rushed to submit applications for two Myanmar nationals he had interviewed online.
Even in early August, however, the results of their applications had yet to be announced. The workplace remains stretched to the limit. Unless the government reviews its response, the facility will be unable to rely on overseas recruitment until the end of March 2029.
“It would be good if Japan could reverse its declining birth rate and see more young people entering the workforce, but that’s a job for politicians. Unless we support Japan as a whole while accepting a certain number of workers from overseas, it won’t be sustainable,” Kato lamented. “I want politicians to see our kitchen once.”
For meal services at hospitals and nursing care and welfare facilities, many institutions do not have their own kitchens and outsource the work. Major contractors handling those services are also growing increasingly anxious.
One large company that supplies meals to facilities at several thousand locations nationwide began hiring foreign workers around 2021. A representative said, “We are making maximum efforts to improve productivity and secure domestic personnel, but the situation continues in which we cannot fully make up for the serious labor shortage. … There are concerns that meal services, particularly in regional areas, will be affected.”
(Japanese original by Ai Yokota, Editorial Division)